GIFT  OF 
Author 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom 
of  Jesus 

ALSO 

Carlyle  and  Emerson: 
a  Contrast 

By 
George  Wright  Buckley 


"Humor  is  an  invisible  tear  through 
a  visible  smile" 

— FROM  THE  RUSSIAN 


SECOND  EDITION 


ELLIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
Battle  Creek.  Michigan 


The  Wit   and   Wisdom 
of  Jesus 


676083 


Copyright,  1901 
By  James  H.  West  Company 


Contents 

^ 

PAGE 

Preface 3 

Introduction n 

I.     Humor  Versus  Criticism      .     .  23 
II.     Life-Sketches:  Turning  "Men's 

Ears  into  Eyes  "  ....  43 

III.  Misunderstood        59 

IV.  Kindred  and  Neighbors  ...  71 
V.     Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  .     8  87 

VI.     Opposition  and  Quotation    .     0  105 

VII.     Miracles;  Practical  Religion     .  123 

VIII.     Vanquished  Craft 14$ 

IX.     Hypocrisy  and  Self-Righteous- 
ness ........  159 

X.     Closing  of  the  Conflict    ...  173 

Conclusion «  197 

Index 203 

(5) 


Behold  the  man  !     Behold  the  God  ! 

Ah,  which  to  say,  and  how,  and  why  ! 

In  vain  our  tangled  reasons  try 
The  path  so  many  feet  have  trod. 

O  man  of  sorrows,  man  of  joy  !  — 
Of  joy  for  all  thy  strife  and  scars,  — 
Whereso  thou  art  among  the  stars, 

In  peace  that  nothing  can  destroy,  — 

Though  we  our  voices  may  not  blend 

With  that  hoarse  chant  the  centuries  raise, 
Yet  is  it  not  a  sweeter  praise 

To  say,  "  Our  brother  and  our  friend  "  ? 

And  if  beyond  this  verge  of  time 
We  know  thee  better  as  thou  art, 
Wilt  thou  not  clasp  us  heart  to  heart, 

As  fills  our  ears  the  heavenly  chime  ? 

—John  W.  Cb&dwick. 
(7) 


"Who  art  tbou,  Lord?" — the  question,  still,  of  old  ! 

Thy  silver  speech  hath  opened  man's  dull  ears, 
Thy  wisdom  hath  turned  spirit's  dross  to  gold, 
And  calms  us  yet,  through  maze  of  tangled  years. 

"  Whence  earnest  tbou  ?"     The  Galilean  hills 

Which  knew  thy  eager  feet  and  pulsing  speech  — 
Could  they  alone  inspire  the  Word  that  thrills 
The  souls  of  men  to  farthest  ages'  reach  ? 

Or  for  thy  birth,  from  Heav'n  with  rapture  rife 
Didst  thou  indeed  descend  earth's  woes  to  leaven  ? 

We  know  not  !  —  but  we  know  thy  words  of  life 
From  mortal  birth  lift  man  to  birth  of  Heaven  ! 

—James  H.  West. 
(8) 


Introduction 


Sometimes  wit  lieth  in  pat  allusion  to  a  known  story, 
or  in  seasonable  application  of  a  trivial  saying,  or  in 
forging  an  apposite  tale  ;  sometimes  it  playeth  in  words 
and  phrases,  taking  advantage  from  the  ambiguity  of 
their  sense,  or  the  affinity  of  their  sound  ;  sometimes 
it  lurketh  under  an  odd  similitude  ;  sometimes  it  is 
lodged  in  a  sly  question,  in  a  smart  answer,  in  a  quick- 
ish  reason,  in  a  shrewd  intimation,  in  cunningly  divert- 
ing or  cleverly  retorting  an  objection  ;  sometimes  it  is 
couched  in  a  bold  scheme  of  speech,  in  a  tart  irony, 
in  a  lusty  hyperbole,  in  a  startling  metaphor  ;  .  .  . 
sometimes  a  scenical  representation  of  persons  or  things, 
a  counterfeit  speech,  a  mimical  look  or  gesture,  passeth 
for  wit ;  .  .  .  sometimes  it  riseth  only  from  a  lucky 
hitting  upon  what  is  strange.  .  .  .  Often  it  consisteth 
in  one  knows  not  what,  and  springeth  up  one  can 
hardly  tell  how.  Its  ways  are  unaccountable  and 
inexplicable,  being  answerable  to  the  numberless  rov- 
ings  of  fancy  and  windings  of  language. — Barrow. 

(10) 


Introduction 


exempt  nothing  from  inquiry  is  the 
*  marked  attitude  of  our  age.  The  maxim 
of  Greek  philosophy,  "  Man  is  the  measure  of 
all  things/'  has  become  our  maxim  too.  In 
this  unfettered  and  searching  temper  of  the 
time  the  old  theological  distinction  of  profane 
and  sacred  loses  dominion  over  thoughtful 
men :  the  Bible,  and  even  the  teachings  and 
character  of  Jesus,  are  subjected  to  honest  and 
comparative  analysis.  It  is  well,  this  free 
measurement  of  him,  if  only  one  preserve  a 
truly  reverent  and  grateful  relation  to  his 
peerless  personality. 

More  than  a  decade  since,  the  writer  was 
much  taken  with  the  title  of  a  helpful  little 
volume  of  "higher  criticism," from  the  pen  of 
Reverend  Joseph  Henry  Crooker.  The  title 


12         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

was  "Jesus  Brought  Back."  The  title  was 
very  taking,  because  it  so  strikingly  signifies 
what  has  been  transpiring  these  latter  days. 
As  some  of  the  choicest  specimens  of  antique 
art  were  lost  in  the  accumulated  rubbish  of 
centuries,  to  be  resurrected  by  the  zealous 
efforts  of  modern  archaeologists,  so  the  Son 
of  man  was  lost  in  the  disfiguring  theology 
and  superstition  of  the  Christian  Church,  to 
be  found  again  in  our  age  of  discovering  and 
restoring  manifold  things.  The  real  Jesus  is 
being  brought  back.  In  literature,  in  art,  in 
the  pulpit  itself,  there  is  no  mistaking  the 
tendency  to  view  him  in  human  aspects  and 
relations  —  to  view  him  as  under  a  universal 
law  of  human  development  and  limitation, 
whereby  even  the  greatest  of  men  are  linked 
to  the  imperfect  age  in  which  they  live  and  to 
the  more  or  less  specialized  nature  of  the 
work  given  them  to  do. 

Just  as  we  say  that  Aristotle  and  Herbert 
Spencer  were  specially  gifted  for  philosophy, 
Humboldt  and  Darwin  for  science,  Shake- 


Introduction  IJ 

speare  for  poetry,  Edison  for  invention,  the 
Rothschilds  for  banking,  so  may  we  not  say 
of  Jesus  that  his  special  genius  was  for  relig- 
ion and  ethics  ?  To  the  paramount  end  of 
bearing  witness  to  truth  on  its  spiritual  and 
moral  side,  and  in  such  a  way  as  most  effect- 
ually to  give  it  vital  relation  to  life,  he  was-*- 
endowed  with  certain  powers.  Among  these 
were  clear  perceptions  of  religious  and  moral 
obligation,  poetic  sensibility,  insight  and  sym- 
pathetic imagination  to  enter  readily  into  the 
consciousness  of  others  —  into  their  motives 
and  reasoning,  their  hopes  and  fears,  loves  and 
hates,  joys  and  sorrows.  To  these  qualities 
add  a  passion  for  service,  a  gift  for  oratory  of 
a  genuine  and  persuasive  kind,  and,  withal,  a 
faculty  of  wit  and  humor,  —  most  assuredly 
wit,  sui  generis  in  pre-eminent  degree.  This 
latter  faculty  had  immeasurably  to  do  with 
making  his  sayings  stick  to  the  memory  of 
his  hearers  and  become  the  transmitted  inher- 
itance of  the  race. 

Who  has  not  marveled  at  the  apparent  self- 


/</          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

contradictions  of  individual  men  —  individual 
great  men  ?  Shakespeare,  almost  overmas- 
tered by  the  heat  and  luxuriance  of  his  imag- 
ination, magic  sovereign  of  impalpable  subjects 
in  an  impalpable  kingdom  above  —  how  sane 
and  true  his  measurements  of  human  forces 
here  below  !  What  a  discriminative  vision  of 
the  systems  and  affairs  of  men  may  be  given 
to  a  shy  and  sensitive  unworldling  !  —  witness 
the  serene  and  spotless  Emerson.  On  occa- 
sion, how  mighty  in  action  the  cloistered 
dreamer  !  —  timid  and  sickly  Calvin  (called 
"a  walking  hospital"),  drawn  from  scholarly 
privacy  into  the  strenuous  and  combative 
publicity  of  his  regenerative  career  at  Geneva ; 
or  Luther,  the  studious  monk  of  Erfurt,  before 
the  Diet  of  Worms,  wishing  "  to  be  quiet,  yet 
hurried  into  the  midst  of  tumults."  So,  in- 
deed, a  soul  big  with  earnest  intent,  yea,  with 
divine  sadness,  may  also  have  a  spring  of 
humor  to  refresh  men  and  disclose  the  heart 
of  things  amiss  in  this  world  ;  —  humor  often 
playing  across  some  somber  background  as 


Introduction  75 

the  sunlight  plays  across  a  dark  cloud  of  the 
heavens.  Strangely  close  to  truth  is  the  defi- 
nition of  a  Russian,  that  "  Humor  is  an  invis- 
ible tear  through  a  visible  smile."  Even  thus 
was  it  with  Thomas  Carlyle  in  literature,  the 
melancholy  Lincoln  in  politics,  and,  in  religion, 
"the  man  of  sorrows,"  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

Recognizing  the  legitimacy  and  effective- 
ness of  well-timed  wit  and  humor,  the  prince 
of  righteousness  exercised  them  to  a  purpose 
befitting  one  mindful  of  the  gravity  of  his 
mission  and  profoundly  sensitive  to  the  tragic 
side  of  life.  Sometimes  he  used  them  to 
season  serious  discourse,  simply  as  we  use  salt 
and  sugar  to  season  food ;  sometimes  to  pierce 
with  his  thought  the  thick  mental  integuments 
of  one  or  another  class  of  his  hearers  ;  some- 
times as  victorious  weapons  of  battle  with 
unscrupulous  enemies.  What  concerns  the 
author  of  these  pages  is  not  that  he  classify 
the  wit  and  wisdom  of  Jesus  under  definite 
categories ;  but  rather  that  he  give  them  some 
living  relation  to  the  sublime  personality 


1 6          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

whence  they  sprang,  and  that,  too,  with  a 
religious  and  moral  motive,  and  with  the  free- 
dom of  a  broad  interpretation  of  terms  and 
incidents. 

The  utterances  of  the  most  independent 
minds  are  the  resultant  of  outer  and  inner 
conditions  in  process  of  change.  Influences 
of  race,  heredity,  environment ;  influences 
which  come  from  increased  knowledge  of  the 
conduct  and  motives  of  men,  which  come  from 
the  noblest  aspirations  of  them  when  disap- 
pointed, from  the  rasping  sense  of  unavoidable 
combat  with  stupidity  and  selfishness,  from 
the  suffering  of  it  all  —  who  shall  measure 
the  potency  of  these  to  shape  the  usage  of 
the  mental  faculties,  wit  and  humor  and  the 
rest  ?  Untrammeled  by  traditionary  premises 
and  prejudices  about  Jesus,  may  we  not  inter- 
pret what  he  did  and  said  in  the  light  of  such 
influences  operative  in  his  brief  career  ?  His 
life  was  progress  and  tragedy,  from  the  pre- 
cocious boy  in  the  temple,  amazing  the  doctors, 
to  the  agony-crowned  victor  of  Gethsemane 


Introduction  // 

and  Calvary.  The  supreme  integrity  of  his  god- 
ward  aim  holds  to  the  fatal  end ;  but  the  shift- 
ing scenes  and  situations  of  the  drama  must 
needs  work  some  change  in  his  thought  and 
treatment  as  physician  to  the  soul  of  man. 

Never  to  the  eye  of  the  most  reverent 
Israelite,  standing  on  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
looked  more  enchanting  the  distant  sanctuary 
of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem,  with  its  white 
marble  parapets  and  its  golden-plated  sides, 
shining  in  the  sunlight,  now  "  like  a  mountain 
of  glittering  snow,  now  like  a  sea  of  fire  " 
never  more  enchanting  than  in  the  opening  of 
his  ministry  looked  to  this  Messiah's  untried 
hope  and  faith  the  prospect  of  life  in  loving, 
helpful  fellowship  with  men.  But  thorns  mul- 
tiplied along  the  way.  Pushed  on  by  an  im- 
perative vision  and  conscience  into  conflict 
with  established  powers,  the  shadows  cast  by 
growing  opposition  encroach  upon  the  lights 
as  that  conflict  proceeds.  Touching  the  will- 
ingness of  his  countrymen  to  accept  him  as 
the  king  of  a  "kingdom  not  of  this  world, "he 


1 8          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

had  meted  out  to  him  the  sore  disappointment 
of  all  the  prophets  of  God.  Hope  and  faith 
lost  some  of  their  early  joyousness,  as  the  rich 
flush  of  fruit  fades  out  with  too  much  cold- 
ness and  shade.  The  boy's  cruelty  that  de- 
spoils the  nest  of  its  birdlings  makes  the 
mother's  voice  more  sad  and  piercing.  And 
society's  cruelty  to  its  prophet,  which  despoils 
him  of  his  cherished  expectations,  offspring 
of  divine  intent,  makes  more  sad  and  piercing 
his  voice  in  the  wilderness  of  this  world :  — 
"  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which  killeth  the 
prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are  sent  unto 
thee !  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy 
children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her 
chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not ! " 

The  view  above  expressed  of  the  Galilean's 
career  has  partly  determined  the  order  in 
which  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  Jesus  are  pre- 
sented in  this  book ;  the  supposition  being 
that,  in  general,  the  more  genial  forms  found 
expression  before  he  was  subjected  to  positive 
antagonism  from  various  quarters.  Note  the 


Introduction  iy 

qualifying  phrase,  "  in  general "  ;  because  to 
make  the  supposition  more  sweeping  by  assert- 
ing that  these  more  genial  forms  must  needs 
all  be  credited  to  his  earlier  career,  and  those 
less  so  to  his  later  career,  would  surely  not 
tally  with  human  nature  and  experience. 

Let  this  word  also  be  spoken,  namely,  that 
with  all  our  latter-day  research  into  the  com- 
position of  the  gospels,  and  into  the  times  of 
nascent  Christianity,  it  is  possible  to  go  wrong 
in  using  our  freedom  to  stamp  as  genuine  or 
spurious  this,  that,  and  the  other  recorded 
utterance  of  Jesus.  For  whatever  one's  con- 
ception of  him,  that  conception  presides  over 
one's  exercise  of  this  freedom,  whether  one 
be  conscious  of  it  or  not.  The  writer  makes 
no  pretense  that  it  is  otherwise  with  himself. 
Here  and  there  he  uses  some  parable  or  say- 
ing across  which  some  higher  critic  or  other 
draws  the  line  as  doubtful  or  spurious.  But 

As  the  higher  critics  disagree, 
By  what  authority  shall  we  see  ? 


i 

Humor  Versus  Criticism 


Among  those  great  elements  of  human  nature  which 
have  shown  themselves  to  be  rooted  in  the  deep,  un- 
conscious life  of  man,  must  be  placed  the  sense  of  the 
ludicrous.  ...  There  are  persons  almost  wholly 
destitute  of  it.  Such  persons  are  tied  down  to  the 
substantial  facts  of  life,  whether  these  be  important 
or  unimportant.  I  will  not  say  that  they  suffer  more 
than  those  who  have  the  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  for 
the  power  of  the  imagination  that  goes  with  this  may 
sometimes  create  sorrows.  They  are,  however,  hard 
and  wooden.  Intercourse  with  them  is  like  driving 
in  a  wagon  without  springs.  ...  A  natural,  hearty 
laugh  is  at  once  a  sign  of  sanity,  and  a  preserver  of  it. 
One  who  can  laugh  naturally  is  for  the  moment  free 
from  any  idee  fixe  that  may  be  haunting  him.  Fie 
shows,  for  the  moment  at  least,  a  superiority  to  the 
hard  facts  of  life.  — Dr.  C.  C.  Everett. 

(22) 


The  Wit   and   Wisdom 

[esus 


of  J, 


I 

Humor  Versus  Criticism 


"If  we  may  believe  our  logicians,  man  is  distinguished 
from  all  other  creatures  by  the  faculty  of  laughter. 
If  we  consider  the  frequent  reliefs  we  receive  from 
it,  and  bow  often  it  breaks  the  gloom  which  is  apt 
to  depress  the  mind  and  damp  our  spirits,  with 
transient  unexpected  gleams  of  joy,  one  would  take 
care  not  to  grow  too  wise  for  so  great  a  pleasure 
of  fife."  —  ADDISON. 

A  CONTEMPORARY  of  Emerson,  in  de- 
scribing this  American  seer  and  prophet 
on  the  lecture-platform,  speaks  of  his  indulg- 
ing in  the  "  inaudible  laugh,"  as  here  and  there 
he  slipped  into  grave  discourse  some  expres- 


24         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

sion  of  subtle  and  quiet  humor.  Very  likely, 
too,  the  "  inaudible  laugh  "  and  pleasant  humor 
lent,  not  infrequently,  winsome  grace  both  to 
the  preaching  and  the  social  converse  of  the 
seer  and  prophet  of  Galilee.  I  imagine  him  in 
his  early  ministry  going  forth  with  buoyant 
faith  in  men,  —  body  healthy,  mind  teeming 
with  lively  imagery ;  loving  Nature  and  soli- 
tude, heartily  loving  men  and  their  comrade- 
ship ;  open  to  the  comedy  of  life  rather  more 
than  when  further  along  the  journey,  when 
the  tragedy  of  it  projects  itself  more  conspic- 
uously into  the  foreground. 

To  behold  him  a  son  of  joyous  humor  as 
well  as  of  tragic  sadness  surely  enhances  the 
lovableness  and  perfection  of  his  character. 
Yea,  to  think  of  his  having  now  and  then  a 
good  laugh  in  him,  a  free  and  genuine  laugh, 
with  the  ring  of  innocent  childhood  and 
Nature's  own  sincerity  —  this  also  is  not  so 
shocking  to  the  writer  as  once  it  was.  With- 
out losing  his  "weeping  Christ,"  he  sees  him 
otherwise  than  holding  the  finical  sentiment 


Humor  Versus  Criticism  2$ 

which  Emerson  seems  to  quote  with  approval 
from  Lord  Chesterfield,  —  "I  am  sure  that 
since  I  have  had  the  full  use  of  my  reason, 
nobody  has  ever  heard  me  laugh. "  But  in- 
deed, the  same  Emerson,  who  had  true  Platonic 
vision  of  both  sides  of  all  questions,  speaks 
much  more  to  our  notion  elsewhere :  "  A  per- 
ception of  the  comic  seems  to  be  a  balance- 
wheel  in  our  metaphysical  structure.  It 
appears  to  be  an  essential  element  in  a  fine 
character.  Wherever  the  intellect  is  con- 
structive, it  will  be  found.  We  feel  the  ab- 
sence of  it  as  a  defect  in  the  noblest  and  most 
oracular  soul.  The  perception  of  the  comic 
is  a  tie  of  sympathy  with  other  men,  a  pledge 
of  sanity,  and  a  protection  from  those  perverse 
tendencies  and  gloomy  insanities  in  which 
fine  intellects  sometimes  lose  themselves." 
And  Carlyle,  too,  England's  prophet  —  how 
strongly  he  declares  himself  on  this  matter : 
"  How  much  lies  in  laughter :  the  cipher-key 
wherewith  we  decipher  the  whole  man !  .  .  . 
The  man  who  cannot  laugh  is  not  only  fit 


26         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils,  but 
his  own  life  is  already  a  treason  and  a 
stratagem/' 

Humor  and  laughter,  with  due  measure 
of  gravity  behind  them,  are  sign  and  seal  of 
health  and  sanity ;  sign  and  seal  of  true 
kinship  with  humanity.  Therefore  Jesus, 
when  he  took  upon  him,  or  had  put  upon  him, 
this  humanity,  was  given  them  in  goodly 
measure.  No  vender  of  jokes  ;  but  perceiver 
and  revealer  of  disparities  between  folly  and 
wisdom,  pretense  and  practice  —  perceiver  and 
revealer  of  the  lie  masquerading  as  truth,  of 
wickedness  skulking  under  outward  seemings 
of  the  good. 

Meager  as  the  records  are,  they  disclose 
plays  of  humor  on  the  part  of  the  Son  of  man 
which,  whatever  his  own  bearing,  must  have 
worked  the  risibles  of  some  hearers  into  no 
uncertain  smile,  perhaps  sometimes  into  ex- 
plosive laugh. 

"  Folly-painting  humor,  grave  himself, 
Calls  laughter  forth." 


Humor  Versus  Criticism  27 

Let  the  reader  catch  this  aspect  from  a  few 
illustrations  in  the  present  chapter,  and  also 
from  some  in  the  succeeding  chapter. 

The  traditional  habit  of  viewing  Jesus  as 
given  only  to  grave  discourse  has  invested 
some  of  his  utterances  with  a  significance 
altogether  different  from  what  they  have  when 
the  fine  flavor  of  the  speaker's  humor  is  tasted 
in  them.  A  curious  instance  of  this  is  the 
account  given  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of 
Matthew,  which  describes  the  peculiar  treat- 
ment of  the  poor  Canaanitish  woman  who  be- 
seeches him  to  heal  her  daughter,  "  grievously 
vexed  with  a  devil."  When  the  disciples  try 
to  keep  her  away,  she  cries  the  more,  "  Lord, 
help  me  ! "  And  what  reply  does  she  get  ? 
Surely,  one  neither  consistent  nor  pleasant  to 
hear  from  the  lips  of  the  Messiah  of  all  na- 
tions, if  we  construe  it  with  literal  serious- 
ness : 

"  I  was  not  sent,  but  unto  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel."  "  It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread,  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs." 


28         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Some  would  make  these  words  convict 
Jesus  of  that  Jewish  narrowness  so  prevalent 
with  his  countrymen  at  the  time ;  and  indeed, 
a  certain  learned  rabbi  of  to-day  finds  in 
them  a  warning  against  throwing  the  bread  of 
the  new  gospel  to  strangers,  instead  of  keep- 
ing it  wholly  for  his  own  people,  —  a  view  less 
tenable  than  the  opposite  one. 

Had  we  the  complete  record  of  this  inci- 
dent, we  should  behold  no  narrowness  on  the 
part  of  the  master,  but  only  on  the  part  of 
the  disciples  and  the  author  of  the  Matthew 
gospel.  Likely  enough  these  words  were 
thrown  into  the  interrogatory  form  :  "  Is  it 
not  that  I  was  sent  only  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
the  house  of  Israel  ? "  "  Is  it  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs  ? " 
The  very  witty  reply  comes,  "  Yea,  Lord,  for 
even  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  that  fall  from 
their  master's  table."  According  to  the  text  in 
Mark,  Jesus  so  far  appreciated  the  wit  of  the 
woman  that  he  healed  her  daughter  because 
of  it :  "  For  this  saying,  go  thy  way,"  and  so 
forth. 


Humor  Versus  Criticism  2() 

Taking  the  story  in  this  form,  the  intent 
seems  to  be  to  get  the  Gentile  woman's  point 
of  view,  to  test  her  faith,  to  rebuke  the 
national  exclusiveness  of  the  disciples  and 
teach  a  lesson  of  toleration.  It  may  be,  the 
reply  ascribed  to  the  woman  was  uttered  by 
Jesus  himself,  —  uttered  in  response  to  objec- 
tions made  to  the  extension  of  his  mission 
of  fellowship  and  Good-Samaritanship  to  the 
"  heathen." 

The  master's  freer  and  broader  outlook 
early  subjected  him  to  criticism,  both  from 
within  and  from  without  the  new  movement 
in  religion.  Later  in  his  career,  his  increased 
hospitality  provokes  among  his  Jewish  fol- 
lowers murmurs  of  provincial  prejudice  and 
jealousy.  "Are  these  last  converts  to  share 
equally  with  us,  who  belong  to  God's  chosen 
people  and  were  first  to  come  into  the  service 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom  ?  "  Jesus,  as  is  his 
wont,  makes  use  of  the  parable  to  rebuke  this 
natural  but  selfish  spirit.  He  draws  the 
graphic  and  lively  picture  of  the  workers  in 
the  vineyard : 


JO          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

"The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a 
man  that  is  a  householder,  who  went  out  early 
in  the  morning  to  hire  laborers  into  his  vine- 
yard. And  when  he  had  agreed  with  his 
laborers  for  a  penny  a  day,  he  sent  them  into 
his  vineyard.  And  he  went  out  about  the 
third  hour,  and  saw  others  standing  in  the 
market-place  idle ;  and  to  them  he  said,  Go  ye 
also  into  the  vineyard,  and  whatsoever  is  right 
I  will  give  you.  And  they  went  their  way. 
Again  he  went  out  about  the  sixth  and  the 
ninth  hour,  and  did  likewise.  And  about  the 
eleventh  hour  he  went  out,  and  found  others 
standing ;  and  he  saith  unto  them,  Why  stand 
ye  here  all  the  day  idle  ?  They  say  unto  him, 
Because  no  man  has  hired  us.  He  saith  unto 
them,  Go  ye  also  into  the  vineyard.  And 
when  evening  was  come,  the  lord  of  the  vine- 
yard saith  unto  his  steward,  Call  the  laborers, 
and  pay  them  their  hire,  beginning  from  the 
last  unto  the  first.  And  when  they  came  that 
were  hired  about  the  eleventh  hour,  they  re- 
ceived every  man  a  penny.  And  when  the 


Humor   Versus  Criticism  JI 

first  came,  they  supposed  they  would  receive 
more ;  and  they  likewise  received  every  man 
a  penny.  And  when  they  received  it,  they 
murmured  against  the  householder,  saying, 
These  last  have  spent  but  one  hour,  and  thou 
hast  made  them  equal  unto  us,  who  have  borne 
the  burden  of  the  day  and  the  scorching  heat. 
But  he  answered  and  said  to  one  of  them, 
Friend,  I  do  thee  no  wrong ;  didst  thou  not 
agree  with  me  for  a  penny  ?  Take  that  which 
is  thine,  and  go  thy  way ;  it  is  my  will  to  give 
unto  these  last  even  as  unto  thee.  Is  it  not 
lawful  for  me  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine 
own  ?  or  is  thine  eye  evil  because  I  am  good  ? 
So  the  last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  last.''  * 

This  parable  contains  a  passage  or  so  which 
the  devil  may  quote  for  his  purpose ;  and  yet 
within  it  lies  one  of  the  most  comprehensive 
truths  of  justice  and  love.  It  is  much  more 
than  a  rebuke  to  the  selfish  pride  and  desire 
for  precedence  among  his  disciples.  It  has  a 
universal  application  to  human  relations  and 
*  Matt.  20,  i -i 6. 


32         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

obligations.  First,  it  rebukes  a  complaining 
attitude  toward  God,  which,  put  into  words, 
is  this  :  —  "  My  neighbor  has  a  larger  slice  of 
cake  than  I.  Greater  success  and  happiness 
are  his,  and  yet  he  works  no  harder  to  get 
them.  Ergo,  I  am  defrauded  of  part  of  my 
wages."  Second,  it  rebukes  persons  of  two 
opposite  classes  in  society :  on  the  one  hand, 
those  of  a  "  serving  class,"  who  see  their 
superiors  through  the  "  evil  eye  "  of  envy ;  on 
the  other  hand,  those  of  a  ruling  class,  whose 
proud,  self-assertive  egoism  overvalues  their 
particular  work,  forgetting  that 

"  All  service  is  the  same  with  God  — 
With  God,  whose  puppets,  best  and  worst, 
Are  we  ;  there  is  no  last  or  first." 

In  the  gospel  accounts  we  get  intimations 
of  some  disposition  on  the  part  of  John's  dis- 
ciples to  question  the  ways  of  Jesus.  These 
two  prophets  stood,  to  their  age,  as  conspicu- 
ously different  as,  to  our  age,  have  stood  Car- 
lyle  and  Emerson.  But  they  recognized,  as 


Humor   Versus  Criticism  JJ 

did  the  latter  prophets,  that  they  were  work- 
ing in  unity  of  spirit  for  the  new  dispensa- 
tion. 

Most  admirable  are  the  tact  and  temper  of 
the  Nazarene  when  taken  to  task  because  his 
disciples  do  not  fast,  as  is  the  custom  of  the 
Pharisees  and  the  disciples  of  John  !  In  reply 
he  shows  how  little  he  values  fasting  as  an 
obligatory  rite,  not  so  much  by  opposing  his 
questioners  with  grave  argument,  as  by  using 
that  which  is  more  effectual,  a  playful  humor. 
Behold  his  face  light  up  with  a  good-natured 
smile  as  he  compares  himself  and  his  disciples 
to  a  bridegroom  and  his  wedding-friends :  — 
"  Can  the  sons  of  the  bride-chamber  mourn, 
as  long  as  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ?  But 
the  days  will  come  when  the  bridegroom  shall 
be  taken  away  from  them,  and  then  will  they 
fast." 

Touching  the  argument  for  keeping  old 
forms  with  new  thought  —  argument  held  in 
stock  by  the  conservative  of  every  age  —  he 
goes  on  to  make  this  analogy : 


34         TJic  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

"  No  man  rendeth  a  piece  from  a  new  gar- 
ment and  putteth  it  upon  an  old  garment ;  else 
he  will  rend  the  new,  and  also  the  piece  from 
the  new  will  not  agree  with  the  old.  And  no 
man  putteth  new  wine  into  old  wine-skins  ; 
else  the  new  wine  will  burst  the  skins,  and 
itself  will  be  spilled,  and  the  skins  will  perish. 
But  new  wine  must  be  put  into  fresh  wine- 
skins. And  no  man  having  drunk  old  wine 
desireth  new  :  for  he  saith,  The  old  is  good/'  * 

The  humor  of  the  last  sentence  reflects 
true  insight  into  the  conservative  nature  of 
the  far  larger  part  of  human  society  at  all 
times.  For  it,  "The  old  is  good." 

According  to  all  three  of  the  synoptic 
gospels,  it  is  in  this  connection  that  Jesus  is 
censured  for  the  opposite  of  fasting,  namely, 
for  feasting  and  fellowship  with  publicans  and 
sinners.  And  how  does  he  meet  the  censure  ? 
By  a  reply  memorable  to  all  succeeding  gen- 
erations for  the  sympathetic  wit  and  wisdom 
of  it :  "  They  that  are  whole  have  no  need  of 
*  Matt.  9,  14-17  ;  Luke  5,  33-39. 


Humor   Versus  Criticism  JJ 

a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick.  But  go 
ye  and  learn  what  this  meaneth:  I  desire 
mercy,  and  not  sacrifice ;  for  I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance." 
Many  a  minister  has  had  occasion  to  rebuke 
with  this  pregnant  saying  the  manifestation, 
in  or  out  of  his  flock,  of  this  self-righteous 
and  exclusive  attitude  toward  individual  sin- 
ners, or  toward  some  lower  strata  of  society. 

Having  come  repeatedly  in  contact  with 
this  fault-finding  temper,  directed  sometimes 
against  John  the  Baptist,  sometimes  against 
himself,  he  sets  it  forth  in  this  happy  com- 
parison : 

"  But  whereunto  shall  I  liken  the  men  of 
this  generation  ?  They  are  like  children  that 
sit  in  the  market-places  and  call  to  one  another, 
saying,  We  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  did  not 
dance;  we  wailed,  and  ye  did  not  mourn. 
For  John  is  come  neither  eating  nor  drink- 
ing, and  they  say,  He  hath  a  devil ;  the  Son 
of  man  is  come  eating  and  drinking,  and  they 
say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine- 


j6          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

bibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners. 
But  wisdom  is  justified  by  her  works,"  —or, 
as  Luke  has  more  poetically  put  it,  "  of  her 
children/'  The  generation  is  a  frivolous  and 
carping  generation  ;  whimsical  and  petulant  as 
a  lot  of  children  playing  at  mock  weddings 
and  funerals.  It  is  predisposed  to  set  its  face 
against  the  new  dispensation,  whether  it  appear 
in  the  form  of  John's  austere  morality  and 
asceticism,  or  in  the  broader  and  more  cheer- 
ful comradeship  of  Jesus.  By  reason  of  the 
contrast,  the  humor  of  the  passage  is  all  the 
more  effective  for  being  preceded  in  the  text  - 
as  likely  it  was  in  fact  —  by  that  generous  and 
truly  eloquent  tribute  to  his  contemporary, 
reaching  a  climax  in  the  words,  "  Among  them 
born  of  woman  there  is  none  greater  than 
John." 

I  cannot  forbear  noting  here  the  contrast 
between  Jesus  and  Gautama  the  Buddha  in 
reference  to  their  method  of  meeting  crit- 
icism, —  the  latter's  dialectic  gravity,  the 
former's  nimble  wit,  or  playful  humor,  which 


Humor   Versus  Criticism  jy 

quickly  closes  controversy.  Jesus  had  that 
highest  wit  which  disarms  a  contestant  with  a 
single  answer. 

To  illustrate  the  difference :  When  Deva- 
detta  (the  Judas  among  the  disciples  of  the 
Hindu  sage)  upbraids  his  master  for  not  ob- 
serving more  stringent  rules  and  self-mortifi- 
cation, the  Buddha  makes  reply  after  this 
fashion  : 

"  Truly,  the  body  is  full  of  impurity  and  its 
end  is  the  charnal-house,  for  it  is  imperma- 
nent and  destined  to  be  dissolved  into  its 
elements.  ...  It  is  not  good  to  indulge  in 
the  pleasures  of  the  body ;  but  neither  is  it 
good  to  neglect  our  bodily  needs  and  to  heap 
filth  upon  its  impurities.  The  lamp  that  is 
not  cleansed  and  filled  with  oil  will  be  extin- 
guished, and  a  body  that  is  unkempt,  unwashed 
and  weakened  by  penance  will  not  be  a  fit 
receptacle  for  the  light  of  truth. " 

When  the  Buddha  approaches  the  nearest 
to  Jesus'  pregnant  wit  and  humor,  he  still 
speaks  as  a  dialectician.  Nowhere  is  he  more 


j8         TJic  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jestts 

happy  than  in  the  reputed  conversation  with  a 
young  ascetic,  called  Sona.  The  latter  has 
become  so  disgusted  with  austere  repression 
of  himself  that  he  is  about  to  turn  into  the 
opposite  course  of  unrestrained  pleasure.  On 
bringing  the  matter  to  his  master's  attention 
the  following  dialogue  takes  place : 

"  How  is  it,  Sona ;  were  you  able  to  play 
the  lute  before  you  left  home  ? " 

"Yes,  sire." 

"  What  do  you  think  then,  Sona ;  if  the 
strings  of  your  lute  are  too  tightly  strung, 
will  the  lute  give  out  the  proper  tone,  and  be 
fit  to  play  ? " 

"  It  will  not,  sire." 

"And  what  do  you  think,  Sona;  if  the 
strings  of  your  lute  be  strung  too  slack,  will 
the  lute  then  give  out  the  proper  tone,  and  be 
fit  to  play  ? " 

"  It  will  not,  sire." 

"  But,  how,  Sona,  if  the  strings  of  your  lute 
be  not  strung  too  tight  or  too  slack ;  if  they 
have  the  proper  degree  of  tension,  will  the 


Humor  Versus  Criticism  Jp 

lute  then  give  out  the  proper  sound  and  be 
fit  to  play?" 

"Yes,  sire." 

"  In  the  same  way,  Sona,  energy  too  much 
strained  tends  to  excessive  zeal,  and  energy 
too  much  relaxed  tends  to  apathy.  Therefore, 
Sona,  cultivate  in  yourself  the  mean  of  energy, 
and  press  on  to  the  mean  in  your  mental 
powers,  and  place  this  before  you  as  your 
aim."  * 

Broadly  speaking,  these  two  oriental  found- 
ers of  a  new  religion  may  be  said  to  differ 
somewhat  as  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson 
differ  in  literature.  Wisdom  comes  from 
Jesus  as  the  flash  of  insight,  in  the  form  of 
apotheme,  proverb,  picturesque  parable ;  from 
the  Buddha  it  comes  usually  as  a  syllogism,  or 
chain  of  closely  related  and  dependent  prop- 
ositions. Jesus  darts  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter  on  the  wings  of  that  adjusting  imag- 
ination and  intuition  which  sees  at  once  the 
principle  that  unites  things  apparently  differ- 

*  Oldenberg's  "  Buddha,"  p.  189. 


40         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

ent,  and  the  principle  that  differentiates  things 
apparently  alike.  The  Buddha  moves  more 
slowly  in  detail,  encumbered  rather  by  his 
more  heavy  armor  of  much  learning  and  logic. 
In  replying  to  questioners  he  reveals  truth  as 
the  sun  sheds  light  at  early  morn,  gradually 
making  objects  stand  out  clear  and  distinct. 
Jesus  reveals  truth  rather  as  the  sun  which 
at  mid-day  escapes  from  a  dark  cloud :  in- 
stantly all  shadows  are  dispelled  with  effulgent 
light. 


II 


Life-Sketches:    Turning  "  Men's 
Ears  into  Eyes " 


Folly,  conceit,  foppery,  silliness,  affectation,  hypoc- 
risy, attitudinizing  and  pedantry  of  all  shades,  and  in 
all  forms,  everything  that  poses,  prances,  bridles,  struts, 
bedizens,  and  plumes  itself,  everything  that  takes  itself 
seriously  and  tries  to  impose  itself  on  mankind,  —  all 
this  is  the  natural  prey  of  the  satirist,  so  many  targets 
ready  for  his  arrows,  so  many  victims  offered  to  his 
attack.  And  we  all  know  how  rich  the  world  is  in 
prey  of  this  kind  !  — Amiel* 

All  wit  does  but  divert  men  from  the  road 
In  which  things  vulgarly  are  understood, 
And  force  mistake  and  ignorance  to  own 
A  better  sense  than  commonly  is  known. 

—  Butler. 
(42) 


II 


Life-Sketches  :  Turning  "  Men's 
Ears  Into  Eyes  " 


ftTbe  presence  of  the  ideal  of  right  and  of  truth  in 
all  action  makes  the  yawning  delinquenci-es  of  prac- 
tice remorseful  to  the  conscience,  tragic  to  the 
interest,  but  droll  to  the  intellect." 

—  EMERSON. 

BREVITY  may  be  "the  soul  of  wit/'  but 
J— '  not  so  surely  is  it  the  soul  of  humor. 
Often  by  extension,  rather,  does  the  latter 
come  to  effective  head.  Because  of  the  very 
brevity  of  the  gospel  text  I  believe  the  humor 
of  Jesus  is  less  conspicuous  than  otherwise  it 
would  be.  With  fuller  text  I  also  question  if 
certain  parables  in  which  is  found  humor  would 
be  open  to  the  psychological  objection  made 
against  their  genuineness  in  some  quarters. 


44         The  Wit  arid  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Belonging  to  this  class  are  the  parables 
about  the  widow  and  the  judge,  and  the  per- 
sistent man  who  clamored  at  his  neighbor's 
door  for  bread  until  from  sheer  weariness  the 
latter  handed  out,  or  threw  out,  all  he  asked 
for.* 

"  Which  of  you  shall  have  a  friend,  and  go 
unto  him  at  midnight,  and  say  to  him,  Friend, 
lend  me  three  loaves ;  for  a  friend  of  mine  has 
come  from  a  journey,  and  I  have  nothing  to 
set  before  him.  And  he  from  within  shall 
answer,  Trouble  me  not,  the  door  is  now  shut, 
and  my  children  are  with  me  in  bed  ;  I  cannot 
rise  and  give  thee.  I  say  unto  you,  though  he 
will  not  rise  and  give  him  because  he  is  his 
friend,  yet  because  of  his  importunity  he  will 
rise,  and  give  him  as  many  as  he  needeth." 

The  picture  of  the  irrepressible  widow,  pes- 
tering the  unrighteous  judge  into  granting  her 
request,  is  companion  to  this : 

"There  was  in  a  city  a  judge  which  feared 
not  God,  and  regarded  not  man;  and  there 

*  Luke  n,  5-13;  18,  1-8. 


Life-Sketches  4$ 

was  a  widow  in  that  city ;  and  she  came  oft 
unto  him,  saying,  Do  me  justice  of  mine 
adversary.  And  he  would  not  for  a  while; 
but  afterward  he  said  within  himself,  Though 
I  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man ;  yet,  because 
this  widow  troubleth  me,  I  will  do  her  justice, 
lest  she  wear  me  out  by  her  continual  coming. 
And  shall  not  God  do  justice  by  his  children 
who  cry  to  him  clay  and  night,  and  he  is  long- 
suffering  over  them  ?  "  The  phrase,  "  though 
I  fear  not  God  nor  regard  man,"  has  the  edge 
of  fine  satire  if  directed,  as  I  believe  it  was, 
at  a  class  of  judicial  magistrates  of  the  time 
more  noted  for  skepticism  and  cynicism  than 
for  righteous  judgment. 

Respecting  the  application  made  in  the  text 
of  the  two  preceding  parables,  objection  is 
offered  that  Jesus  would  not  have  thus  repre- 
sented God  as  wearied  by  the  importunities  of 
men  into  granting  their  petitions.  He  may, 
however,  have  glided  momentarily  into  the 
humor  of  these  parables,  in  some  discourse  or 
other  on  the  power  and  virtue  of  prayerful 


46          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

persistence  and  patience  in  well-doing  despite 
much  discouragement  and  long-deferred  re- 
ward. The  central  thought  is,  if  unrighteous 
men  comply  with  just  requests,  how  much 
more  shall  the  righteous  Father  of  men ! 
"Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do 
right  ?  "  With  quick  mind  for  the  incongru- 
ous, Jesus  presses  on  his  hearers  the  interrog- 
atories which  admit  of  but  one  answer : 

"  Of  which  of  you  that  is  a  father  shall  his 
son  ask  a  loaf,  and  he  give  him  a  stone  ?  or  a 
fish,  and  he  for  a  fish  give  him  a  serpent  ? 
or  if  he  shall  ask  an  egg,  will  he  give  him  a 
scorpion  ?  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how 
to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father  give 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him  ? " 

With  all  his  idealism,  Jesus  had  an  observ- 
ing eye  for  the  practical  activities  of  men,  and 
was  not  without  a  sense  of  the  comic  in  their 
push  and  pull  for  material  things.  Why  should 
they  not  display  equal  devotedness,  equal  heat 
and  energy,  in  the  pursuit  of  spiritual  things  ? 


Life-Sketches  4? 

In  the  parable  of  the  Cunning  Steward  we 
have  another  analogy  drawn  from  the  self- 
seeking  affairs  of  business,  which  blends 
serious  admonition  with  humor.  It  was  prob- 
ably spoken  more  especially  for  the  benefit  of 
Judas  and  some  of  the  newly  converted  pub- 
licans and  sinners,  who  were  trying  to  be 
citizens  of  two  kingdoms,  that  of  God  and 
that  of  the  devil : 

"  There  was  a  certain  rich  man  who  had  a 
steward ;  and  the  same  was  accused  unto  him 
that  he  was  wasting  his  goods.  And  he  called 
him,  and  said  unto  him,  What  is  this  that  I 
hear  of  thee?  render  the  account  of  thy 
stewardship ;  for  thou  canst  be  no  longer 
steward.  And  the  steward  said  within  him- 
self, What  shall  I  do,  seeing  that  my  lord 
taketh  away  the  stewardship  from  me?  I 
have  not  the  strength  to  dig ;  to  beg  I  am 
ashamed.  I  am  resolved  what  to  do,  that 
when  I  am  put  out  of  the  stewardship  they 
may  receive  me  into  their  houses.  And  call- 
ing to  him  each  one  of  his  lord's  debtors,  he 


48         The  Wit  arid  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

said  to  the  first,  How  much  owest  thou  unto 
my  lord  ?  And  he  said,  A  hundred  measures 
of  oil.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Take  thy  bond, 
and  sit  down  quickly  and  write  fifty.  Then 
said  he  to  another,  And  how  much  owest  thou  ? 
And  he  said,  A  hundred  measures  of  wheat. 
He  saith  unto  him,  Take  thy  bond,  and  write 
fourscore.  And  his  lord  commended  the 
unrighteous  steward  because  he  had  done 
wisely  [evinced  worldly  smartness] :  for  the 
sons  of  this  world  are,  for  their  own  genera- 
tion, wiser  than  the  sons  of  the  light."  * 
That  is,  they  show  more  thought  and  diligence 
in  the  transient  affairs  of  earth  than  some  of 
my  disciples  in  the  permanent  affairs  of  heaven. 
Be  ye  faithful  in  the  higher  prudence,  as  they 
are  faithful  in  the  lower,  f 

"He  that   is   faithful   in   a  very  little   is 
faithful  also  in  much,  and  he  that  is  unright- 

*  Luke  1 6,  1-13. 

t  One  of  the  sorriest  illustrations  of  the  mischief  of 
literal  interpretation  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that  the  good 
pagan  emperor,  Julian,  and  others,  have  made  this  parable 
reflect  on  the  ethics  of  Jesus. 


Life-Sketches  4g 

ecus  in  a  very  little  is  unrighteous  in  much.  .  .  . 
No  servant  can  serve  two  masters :  for  either 
he  will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other ;  or 
else  he  will  hold  to  one,  and  despise  the  other. 
Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon."  You 
cannot  divide  your  allegiance  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Spaniard  who,  on  his  death-bed,  being 
told  by  his  confessor  how  the  devil  tortured 
people  in  hell,  replied,  "I  hope  my  lord  the 
devil  is  not  so  cruel,"  Rebuked  for  referring 
to  the  devil  as  "my  lord,"  he  retorted  again, 
"  Excuse  me  for  calling  him  so ;  but  I  know 
not  into  what  hands  I  may  fall ;  and  if  I  happen 
into  his,  I  hope  he  will  use  me  the  better  for 
giving  him  good  words."  The  "  good-lord-and- 
good-devil "  people  Jesus  found  numerous 
enough  in  his  times,  as  they  are  in  all 
times. 

In  Luke  12,  42-48,  we  have  another  humor- 
ous description  of  a  different  sort  of  unfaithful 
steward ;  per  contra,  one  without  even  worldly 
calculation  or  cunning  foresight,  —  a  stupid, 
lawless,  stomach-mongering,  abusive  steward. 


$O          TJic  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

But  this  is  another  parable  across  which  some 
draw  the  line.  To  them  it  expresses  only  a 
disappointed  expectation  of  the  master's  second 
coming  to  earth,  and  the  desire  to  keep  waver- 
ing ones  steadfast  in  the  faith.  Despite  the 
objection  to  some  of  the  setting,  the  picture 
may  be  taken  as  one  by  Jesus. 

Reading  between  the  lines,  I  see  him 
engaged  in  conversation  with  his  disciples 
about  the  need  of  a  more  commanding  faith 
in  a  God  of  righteousness  as  a  never-absent 
presence  in  the  world.  I  hear  him  speak  of 
a  class  of  people  acting  as  though  they  thought 
the  just  Rewarder  and  Punisher  is  at  times 
off  duty,  that  he  "goeth  on  a  journey,"  or 
"  peradventure  sleepeth,"  as  Elijah  mockingly 
said  to  the  prophets  of  Baal.  In  breaking 
away  from  the  constraint  of  moral  obedience 
and  patient  waiting,  they  are  like  the  foolish 
servant  who,  because  his  lord  went  on  a  jour- 
ney and  delayed  his  return,  abandoned  him- 
self to  lawless  revelry  and  abuse  of  authority. 
"  He  beat  the  man-servants  and  maid-servants, 


Life- Sketches  5/ 

ate  and  drank  and  was  drunken."  But  lo,  the 
lord  unexpectedly  appears  on  the  scene  to 
catch  him,  chastise  him  and  cast  him  out.  The 
Divine  Master  of  every  such  servant  "shall 
come  in  a  day  when  he  expecteth  not,  and  in 
an  hour  when  he  knoweth  not,  and  shall  cut 
him  asunder  (from  the  reward  of  the  righteous), 
and  appoint  his  portion  with  the  unfaithful,"  — 
according  to  the  inherent  nature  of  things. 

In  this  connection,  the  whole  law  of  trustee- 
ship, or  personal  responsibility,  is  condensed 
into  a  single  sentence:  "To  whomsoever 
much  is  given,  of  him  shall  much  be  required ; 
and  to  whom  they  commit  much,  of  him  will 
they  ask  the  more."  * 

The  parable  of  the  Ten  Talents  (Matt.  25, 
14-30)  may  fall  into  line  here,  a  most  mem- 
orable vehicle  of  a  vital  truth  about  the  gifts 
and  deserts  and  trusteeship  of  men !  In 
deserved  fashion  it  lays  bare  the  culpability  of 
much  too  numerous  a  class  in  the  social 
structure  of  every  age  and  clime.  It  is  the 
*  Matt.  24,  45-51 ;  Luke  12,  42-48. 


$2         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

class  who  covet  somebody  else's  gift  and  cir 
cumstances,  and,  because  they  have  them  not, 
go  moping  and  disgruntled  through  life,  a 
grievous  burden  to  their  betters.  It  is  they 
of  small  talent  who  waste  life  and  power  in 
ill-natured  complaining  of  those  of  larger 
talent  —  forever  complaining  of  their  want  of 
opportunity,  yet  making  no  sufficient  effort  to 
improve  well  the  opportunity  they  have,  much 
less  to  seek  to  create  opportunity.  Jesus  tells 
these  people  they  shall  not  escape  the  visita- 
tion of  that  universal  law  of  cause  and  effect 
operative  both  in  the  material  and  spiritual 
world  —  the  law  which  the  parable  sums  up 
in  the  maxim,  "Unto  every  one  that  hath 
shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have  abundance  ; 
but  from  him  that  hath  not,  even  that  which 
he  hath  shall  be  taken  away." 

Humor,  and  genial  humor,  too,  lies  behind 
most  of  the  illustrations  thus  far  given,  and 
others  that  might  be  given  in  this  connection. 
It  is  an  element  in  the  lively  image  of  the 
woman  searching  with  candle  and  broom  for 


Life-Sketches  5J 

the  lost  coin,  and  so  delighted  on  finding  it 
that  she  calls  in  the  neighbors  to  rejoice  with 
her  —  verily,  like  a  woman,  indeed  !  *  It  is 
in  the  picture  of  the  guest  appearing  at  the 
wedding-feast  improperly  dressed  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  thrown  into  speechless  embarassment 
by  the  challenge  of  the  host :  "  Friend,  how 
earnest  thou  in  hither  not  having  a  wedding- 
garment  ? "  Spiritually  translated,  Why  hast 
thou  not  prepared,  or  disciplined  thyself,  to  be 
a  citizen  in  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  f  It  is  in 
the  description  of  the  good  man  sowing  wheat 
by  day  and  the  bad  man  sowing  tares  by  night, 
so  that  the  one  can  hardly  be  rooted  out  with- 
out destroying  the  other,  $  —  a  realistic  bit  of 
symbolism  in  its  application  to  the  actual 
status  of  human  society  everywhere  and  at 
all  times;  a  "palpable  hit,"  too,  at  the  over- 
impatient  radical  who  wants  to  take  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  by  violence,  despite  God's  law 
of  evolution.  That  the  attainment  of  divine 

*  Luke  15,  8-1  o. 
t  Matt.  23,  1-13.  |  Matt.  13,  24-30. 


5^          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

ends  by  growth,  rather  than  by  sudden  leaps 
and  miraculous  removal  of  obstructions,  was 
his  Father's  method  became  more  clear  to  the 
parabolist  himself,  as  life's  drama  moved  to  its 
consummation. 

Yet  again,  humor  free  and  vivid  is  displayed 
in  the  parable  of  the  Ten  Virgins  (Matt.  25, 
1-13),  —  a  parable,  however,  ascribed  by  some 
authorities  to  the  apostolic  age.  It  may  have 
received  touches  from  another  than  Jesus,  but 
the  picture  in  the  main  bears  the  stamp  of  the 
same  mind  from  which  emanated  the  parable 
of  the  Ten  Talents.  If  another's,  surely  its 
author  had  a  superb  genius  for  parables,  very 
like  that  of  Jesus.  And  why  must  we  forever 
be  giving  a  theological  or  party  twist  to  such 
parables  ?  Jesus  had  a  high  instinct  for  the 
universal  and  perennial  symbolism  we  find  in 
this  story  of  the  Ten  Virgins.  It  is  a  telling 
satire  on  the  thoughtless  and  thriftless,  who 
never  stock  themselves  with  the  oil  of  knowl- 
edge and  discipline,  which  in  this  world,  or 
any  world,  is  exacted  as  the  price  of  adequacy 


Life-Sketches  55 

to  meet  the  golden  hours  that  glide  upon  us 
unawares  for  our  betterment.  Foolish-virgin 
class  !  —  is  it  that  we  must  always  have  them 
with  us,  they  always  relying  on  the  wise-virgin 
class  to  supply  in  time  of  need  the  oil  they 
have  neglected  to  provide  for  themselves  ? 
Verily,  a  rational  imitation  by  society  of  the 
refusal  of  the  wise  virgins  in  the  parable  to 
supply  oil  for  the  negligent  might  help 
immensely  to  discourage  much  folly  and 
wickedness  in  Israel. 

Would  you  have  a  different  sort  of  inter- 
pretation ?  —  a  more  spiritual  one  ?  Well, 
Jesus  may  have  used  the  bridegroom  figura- 
tively, somewhat  as  the  parable  is  written. 
He  may  have  used  the  symbolism  of  the  wise 
virgins,  with  lamps  and  oil  to  fill  them,  as 
illustrating  both  the  form  and  substance  of 
the  true  religious  faith;  while  the  foolish 
virgins  may  indicate  those  who  have  only  the 
form,  or  appearance,  of  the  faith.  The  lamp 
may  stand  for  outwardness,  and  the  oil  for 
inwardness,  of  religion.  He  who  would  be 


56         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

wise,  religious  and  moral  in  the  future  must 
be  wise,  religious  and  moral  now. 

"Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen." 
Would  you  be  one  of  the  chosen  company  of 
the  bridegroom  of  knowledge  and  power  and 
righteousness,  and  of  peace  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Spirit  ?  then 

Friend,  put  oil  in  the  lamp  to-day, 
For  light  to-morrow  on  thy  way. 


Ill 

Misunderstood 


To  be  misunderstood  even  by  those  whom  one  loves 
is  the  cross  and  bitterness  of  life.  It  is  the  secret  of 
that  sad  and  melancholy  smile  on  the  lips  of  great  men 
which  so  few  understand  ;  it  is  the  crudest  trial  reserved 
for  self-devotion  ;  it  is  what  must  have  oftenest  have 
wrung  the  heart  of  the  Son  of  man  ;  and  if  God  could 
suffer,  it  would  be  the  wound  we  should  ever  be  inflict- 
ing upon  Him.  He  also  —  He  above  all — •  is  the 
great  misunderstood,  the  least  comprehended. 

— AmieL 

There  are  people  who  can  never  understand  a  trope, 
or  any  second  or  expanded  sense  given  to  your  words, 
or  any  humor  ;  but  remain  literalists,  after  hearing  the 
music,  and  poetry,  and  rhetoric,  and  wit,  of  seventy 
or  eighty  years.  They  are  past  the  help  of  surgeon 
or  clergy.  — Emerson. 

(58) 


Ill 

Misunderstood 

*4P5 

"He  that  bath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  bear" 

— JESUS. 

<  <  Wby  do  ye  not  understand  my  speech  ?     Even  because 
ye  cannot  hear  my  word"  — JESUS. 

t(Tbou  art  like  the  Spirit  which  thou  comprebendest" 

—  GOETHE. 

WE  are  wont  to  speak  of  Jesus  as  address- 
ing himself  to  a  common  humanity; 
and  so  he  did.  "  The  common  people  heard 
him  gladly."  But  let  it  not  be  forgotten  how 
much  he  spoke  to  an  uncommon  humanity. 
He  felt  the  unity  of  the  race,  but  he  also 
realized  the  tremendous  diversity  of  it.  Not 
very  long  had  he  been  in  the  ministry  before 
he  had  ample  objective  evidence  of  the  great 
difference  existing  among  men  in  capacity  to 


60         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

apprehend  spiritual  truth,  and  still  more  in 
disposition  and  will  to  apply  it  to  life.  In  the 
happiest  vein  of  covert  criticism  he  sets  forth 
this  difference,  in  the  parable  of  the  Sower :  * 
"  Behold,  the  sower  went  forth  to  sow ;  and 
as  he  sowed,  some  seeds  fell  by  the  wayside, 
and  the  birds  came  and  devoured  them." 
Under  this  figure  of  speech  he  dismisses  at 
once  as  hopeless  the  people  who  are  incapable 
of  understanding  his  message,  through  their 
want  of  the  sense  of  spiritual  things.  "And 
others  fell  upon  rocky  places,  where  they  had 
not  much  earth  ;  and  straightway  they  sprang 
up  because  they  had  no  deepness  of  earth; 
and  when  the  sun  was  risen  they  were  scorched ; 
and  because  they  had  no  root,  they  withered 
away."  This  second  set  of  people  manifest 
great  delight  the  first  time  they  hear  the  word, 
comprehending  it  a  little,  but  not  in  any  full- 
ness of  meaning.  Young  ministers,  and  young 
leaders  generally  of  any  good  cause,  get 
sorely  deceived  by  this  class  of  superficial 

*  Matt.  13,  3-9;  Mark  4,  3-9;  Luke  8,  5-8. 


Misunderstood  6l 

hearers,  with  their  superficial  enthusiasms. 
"And  others  fell  among  thorns;  and  the 
thorns  grew  up  and  choked  them."  A  third 
class  of  hearers  understand  the  word,  and 
really  open  their  hearts  to  it.  But  they  have 
not  the  moral  stamina  to  hold  fast  when  the 
actual  stress  and  strain  of  care  and  temptation 
come.  "And  others  fell  into  good  ground, 
and  yielded  fruit,  growing  up  and  increasing, 
and  brought  forth,  some  thirty  fold,  some  sixty, 
and  some  a  hundred  fold."  These  last  are 
the  hearers  who  not  only  understand  well  the 
word,  but  earnestly,  according  to  capacity, 
disseminate  it  and  put  it  into  their  daily 
conduct.  Jesus  concludes  very  laconically 
when  he  exclaims,  "He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear." 

This  parable  is  a  fine  example  of  his  gift 
for  using  figuratively  the  operations  of  Nature 
to  present  the  intellectual  and  moral  character- 
istics of  classes  in  society.  He  doubtless 
beheld  in  the  multitude  before  him  represent- 
atives of  all  the  four  classes  above  described, 


62         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

And  some,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  recognized  them- 
selves in  the  picture,  notwithstanding  the 
statement  that  among  the  disciples  there  were 
those  dull  enough  to  require  a  private  exposi- 
tion. They  seemed  to  belong  to  that  multitude 
of  whom  he  said,  "  Seeing  they  see  not,  and 
hearing  they  hear  not,  neither  do  they  under- 
stand." 

Here  I  am  led  to  note  a  phase  of  Jesus'  life 
which  presents  a  strange  mixture  of  both 
humor  and  pathos.  It  is  that  phase  which 
caused  him  now  and  then  to  be  misunderstood 
by  the  multitude,  and  even  by  his  own  dis- 
ciples, on  account  of  his  use  of  figurative  and 
mystical  language.  They  comprehended  only 
in  the  letter,  much  as  did  little  Pip  in  "  Great 
Expectations."  Hearing  his  sister  speak  of 
bringing  him  up  "by  hand,"  he  supposed  she 
referred  to  the  frequent  application  upon  him 
of  her  "hard  and  heavy  hand." 

Fatal  bias  of  men  for  materialistic  and 
literal  interpretation !  To  the  idealistic  and 
poetic  temperament,  is  it  the  cause  more  of 


Misunderstood  6j 

smiles  or  tears  ?  Did  it  not  at  times  evoke 
the  former  from  the  Son  of  man  ?  And  is  it 
not  possible  there  were  occasions  when  he 
felt  inclined  to  test  his  hearers'  apprehension 
in  this  respect  ?  Some  passages  in  the  gos- 
pels seem  to  imply  this. 

Instead  of  saying,  "  Beware  of  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,"  he 
says,  "  Beware  of  the  leaven,"  and  so  forth. 
This  sets  his  disciples,  or  the  more  stupid 
of  them,  to  questioning  whether  the  master 
uses  such  speech  because  they  have  no 
bread,  and  to  warn  them  against  the  kind 
of  leaven  in  the  bread  eaten  by  those  sects. 
At  another  time,  refusing  food  with  the 
remark,  "  I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know 
not  of,"  they  wonder  if  somebody  has  handed 
in  an  extra  dish  for  his  special  delectation. 

If  they  so  misunderstood  the  master,  how 
much  the  more  a  simple  Samaritan  woman,  or 
a  promiscuous  crowd  of  his  countrymen,  when 
treated  to  certain  mystical  and  symbolical  say- 
ings as  related  in  the  fourth  gospel !  Did  he 


64         TJie  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

indulge  in  such  language,  with  such  people, 
on  any  occasion,  —  then  no  marvel  if  many 
thought,  "This  is  a  hard  saying,"  and  "went 
back,  and  walked  no  more  with  him "  ;  no 
marvel  if  "  even  his  brethren  did  not  believe 
on  him/1 

Historically  not  altogether  reliable,  these 
dialogues  in  "John";  but,  it  would  seem, 
psychologically  not  so  exceedingly  difficult  to 
accept,  as  is  clear  when  one  remembers  how 
transubstantiation  and  consubstantiation  have 
been  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Church,  built 
by  the  literalist  upon  the  phrases,  "eat  my 
flesh"  and  "drink  my  blood."  Reading  in 
the  Koran  that  God  opened  and  cleansed 
Mohammed's  heart,  have  not  millions  in  the 
Orient  supposed  that  the  physical  heart  of 
the  prophet  was  miraculously  detached  from 
his  body,  thoroughly  washed,  and  reattached 
to  perform  again  its  life-invigorating  func- 
tions ? 

Amid  all  the  beautiful  and  ingenious  blend- 
ing of  fact  and  fiction  in  the  fourth  gospel, 


Misunderstood  6$ 

we  get  here  and  there  a  quite  probable  like- 
ness of  Jesus,  as  to  his  inclination  to  use 
paradoxical,  figurative,  and  mystical  language, 
startling  his  hearers,  and  sometimes  causing 
misunderstanding  bordering  on  the  comic. 
The  scene  in  which  Nicodemus  is  told  he 
"must  be  born  again  "  ;  still  more,  the  follow- 
ing scene  with  his  conservative  countrymen, 
read  like  a  satire  on  the  general  incapacity  of 
those  who  live  in  the  letter  which  "killeth" 
to  enter  into  the  thought  of  those  who  live  in 
the  spirit  which  "giveth  life." 

Jesus  is  represented  as  calling  himself 
"the  bread  which  came  down  out  of  ' 
heaven."  "  If  any  man  eat  of  this  bread, 
he  shall  live  forever ;  and  the  bread  which 
I  will  give  is  my  flesh,  for  the  life  of 
the  world."  His  hearers  wonder  what  such 
strange  speech  is  all  about.  "Is  not  this 
Jesus,  the  son  of  Joseph,  whose  father  and 
mother  we  know  ?  How  doth  he  now  say,  I 
am  come  down  out  of  heaven?  How  can 
this  man  give  us  his  flesh  to  eat  ? " 


66         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Again,  he  tells  them,  "If  God  were  your 
father,  ye  would  love  me ;  for  I  came  forth 
and  am  come  of  God  ;  for  neither  have  I  come 
of  myself,  but  he  sent  me.  Why  do  ye  not 
understand  my  speech?  Even  because  ye 
cannot  hear  my  word.  .  .  .  He  that  is  of  God 
heareth  the  words  of  God ;  for  this  cause  ye 
hear  them  not,  because  ye  are  not  of  God. 
The  Jews  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Say 
we  not  well  that  thou  art  a  Samaritan,  and 
hast  a  devil  ?  " 

Still  more  mystified  and  vexed  are  they 
when  he  declares,  "  If  a  man  keep  my  word, 
he  shall  never  see  death." 

"  Now  we  know  thou  hast  a  devil.  Abraham 
is  dead,  and  the  prophets ;  and  thou  sayest,  If 
a  man  keep  my  word,  he  shall  never  taste 
death.  Art  thou  greater  than  our  father 
Abraham,  who  is  dead  ? " 

"  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my 
day ;  and  he  saw  it,  and  was  glad." 

"  Thou  art  not  yet  fifty  years  old,  and  hast 
thou  seen  Abraham  ? " 


Misunderstood  6/ 

"Verily,  verily,"  responds  Jesus,  " before 
Abraham  was,  I  am."  * 

By  this  time,  we  are  told,  they  were  ready 
to  stone  him.  Not  in  Goethe's  "  Faust  "  do 
the  poetic  outbursts  of  the  hero  fall  more  life- 
less on  the  dull  ears  of  the  prosaic,  material- 
istic Wagner  than  falls  such  speech  on  the 
ears  of  the  Jews  in  this  scene  from  "  John." 

*  John  6,  41-42;  8,  51-58. 


IV 
Kindred  and  Neighbors 


They  expressed  their  surprise  at  his  (Jesus' )  assum- 
ing the  prophetic  function,  .  .  .  they  showed  no 
sympathy  when  he  spoke  of  his  mission ;  in  short, 
they  gave  him  a  thousand  proofs  that  they  did  not 
understand  him.  They  were  far  too  much  accustomed 
to  him,  had  too  often  seen  him  go  in  and  out,  seen 
him  work  and  rest,  eat  and  drink,  to  be  able  to  look 
on  him  as  a  prophet.  .  .  .  And  so  [from  kindred  and 
neighbors]  he  met  with  no  appreciation,  no  enthusiasm, 
no  faith  ;  and  such  faint  hopes  as  he  had  ever  enter- 
tained were  dashed  to  the  ground.  .  .  .  And  to  this 
day  the  ordinary  run  of  mankind  judge  by  the  same 
kind  of  purely  accidental  circumstances.  No  height 
of  moral  grandeur  will  convince  them  that  those  with 
whom  they  are  familiar  are  anything  but  very  ordinary 
sort  of  people.  — Dr.  L  Hooykaas. 

(70) 


IV 
Kindred  and  Neighbors 


"Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son  ?" — NEW  TESTAMENT. 
"He  is  beside  himself." — NEW  TESTAMENT. 

WITH  what  spontaneity  of  wit  our  spirit- 
ual leader  meets  and  masters  varied 
objections  and  opposing  elements  that  rise 
unbidden  in  his  way !  His  answers  often 
come  as  a  searchlight  unexpectedly  turned  on 
obscure  objects  in  the  darkness.  They  sur- 
prise the  hearer  from  a  new  point  of  view  with 
apt  quotation,  startling  epigram,  puzzling  par- 
adox, or  vivid  parable,  minted  as  fresh  coin  in 
his  own  brain.  It  was  a  favorite  method  of 
Jesus  to  administer  rebuke  and  criticism  by 
means  of  the  parable.  He  used  it  on  friend 


J2          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

and  foe,  much  as  Lincoln  used  his  humor- 
ous stories,  to  make  his  admonitions  more 
graciously  received  or  more  readily  appre- 
hended. "  By  a  parable/'  observes  the  Buddha, 
"  many  a  wise  man  perceives  the  meaning  of 
what  is  being  said."  The  simple  man  may 
sometimes  the  better  perceive  it,  too. 

Striking  proof  Jesus  shows  of  wit  and 
insight  into  human  nature  when,  early  in  his 
ministry,  he  returns  home  to  preach  in  the 
synagogue  of  his  native  village.  *  His  former 
townsmen  "wondered  at  the  words  of  grace 
which  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth."  But  — 
yes,  but  —  "  Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son  ? 
And  his  mother  and  brothers  and  sisters  — 
are  they  not  all  with  us  ? "  Some  were 
offended  at  his  manifest  superiority  to  their 
standard  of  mediocrity.  Offended  also  was 
the  young  evangelist :  in  the  consciousness  of 
his  spiritual  authority  offended.  Alas  for 
sensitive  genius  seeking  early  recognition  in 
the  native  town  !  Wise  words  spoken  there 

*  Matt.  13,  54-58;  Mark  6,  1-6;  Luke  4,  18-30. 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  73 

are  but  half  wise,  and  good  deeds  but  half 
good. 

"  Doubtless  ye  will  say  unto  me,  Physician, 
heal  thyself  [it  is  likely  they  did  say  that] : 
whatsoever  we  have  heard  done  at  Capernaum, 
do  also  here  in  this  country.  But  of  a  truth, 
I  say  unto  you,  there  were  many  widows  in 
Israel  in  the  days  of  Elijah,  .  .  .  when  there 
came  a  great  famine  over  the  land ;  and  unto 
none  of  them  was  Elijah  sent,  but  only  to 
Zarephath,  in  the  land  of  Sidon,  unto  a  woman 
that  was  a  widow.  And  there  were  many 
lepers  in  Israel,  in  the  time  of  Elisha  the 
prophet ;  and  none  of  them  was  cleansed, 
but  only  Naaman  the  Syrian."  This  deft 
application  of  what  they  accepted  as  historical 
facts  he  clinches  with  the  famous  utterance, 
"  Verily,  a  prophet  is  not  without  honor,  save 
in  his  own  country,  among  his  own  kin,  and 
in  his  own  house." 

Many  a  moral  and  religious  teacher  has 
realized  the  force  of  the  last  saying  since  it 
sprang  from  the  lips  of  the  greatest  among 


7^          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

prophets.  I  have  little  doubt  that  he  had 
been  in  some  measure  prepared  for  skepticism 
in  the  synagogue  by  skepticism  in  the  home. 
Perhaps  there  is  less  poetry  in  this  view  than 
in  the  one  so  prevalent  in  the  Christian  Church  ; 
but  the  writer  cannot  avoid  reading,  between 
the  lines,  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  felt  the  want 
of  appreciative  sympathy  on  the  part  even  of 
his  own  mother.  With  him  the  first  obliga- 
tion was  "to  bear  witness  to  truth."  Re- 
proved by  his  parents  for  tarrying  in  the 
temple,  he  exclaims,  "Wist  ye  not  that  I 
must  be  about  my  Father's  business  ? " 
Again,  when  word  is  brought  him,  while 
preaching  in  the  open  air,  that  his  mother 
and  brothers  wait  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd  to  speak  with  him,  he  evinces  the 
remarkable  facility  of  his  mind  to  convert 
trivial  incidents  into  the  enforcement  of  the 
nature  of  that  momentous  business.  Upon 
his  hearers  flashes  the  comprehensive  thought 
that  the  ties  of  spiritual  affinity  are  more 
binding  than  those  of  flesh  and  blood. 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  75 

"  Who  is  my  mother  ?  and  who  are  my 
brethren  ?  Behold,  my  mother  and  my 
brethren  are  they  who  hear  the  word  of 
God,  and  do  it." 

Still  another  retort  of  this  surprising  char- 
acter springs  to  his  lips  when  some  "  woman 
out  of  the  multitude,"  in  the  ecstasy  of  her 
feeling,  cries  out,  "  Blessed  is  the  womb  that 
bare  thee,  and  the  breasts  that  thou  didst 
suck  ! " 

"Yea,  rather,"  comes  the  reply,  "blessed 
are  they  that  hear  the  word  of  God,  and 
do  it ! " 

Probably  the  kindred  of  Jesus  in  general 
looked  upon  him  as  a  fanatic  (in  the  language 
of  these  days,  a  "crank")  because  of  his 
intense  absorption  in  his  work  of  evangelism, 
to  the  disregard  of  the  so-called  practical 
interests  of  life.  I  suppose  they  advised 
him  to  be  a  carpenter  like  his  father,  instead 
of  tramping  about  the  country,  preaching 
without  pay.  He  did  not  take  the  advice, 
and  so  he  was  "beside  himself."  How  little 


f6         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Jesus  was  troubled  about  "material"  things, 
the  craving  for  which  causes  so  much  dis- 
content and  contention  among  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  men !  When  the  good-hearted 
Martha,  like  many  housewives,  makes  so  much 
of  her  dinner  that  she  has  no  time  for  the 
word  of  the  wise  man  under  her  roof ;  when 
she  emerges  from  the  kitchen  hot  and  flushed, 
and  complains  of  her  sister  for  leaving  the 
"work"  to  sit  "at  the  Lord's  feet,"  he 
presents  a  contrast  of  the  utmost  serenity. 
Seriously,  yet,  I  apprehend,  with  the  smile  of 
humor,  he  replies,  "  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art 
anxious  and  troubled  about  many  things ;  one 
thing  only  is  needful  [or,  few  things  are  need- 
ful] ;  for  Mary  hath  chosen  the  good  part, 
which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her."  * 

At  another  time  some  one  wants  him  to 
intercede  with  a  brother  to  divide  an  inher- 
itance ;  and  the  only  satisfaction  he  gets  is  a 
humorous  picture  of  what  frequently  occurs 
on  this  planet : 

*  Luke  10,  38-42. 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  ff 

"  The  ground  of  a  certain  rich  man  brought 
forth  plentifully ;  and  he  reasoned  within  him- 
self, saying,  What  shall  I  do  because  I  have 
not  where  to  bestow  my  fruits  ?  And  he  said, 
This  will  I  do  :  I  will  pull  down  my  barns,  and 
build  greater ;  and  there  will  I  bestow  all  my 
corn  and  goods.  And  I  will  say  to  my  soul, 
Soul,  thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many 
years ;  take  thine  ease,  eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry.  But  God  said  unto  him,  Thou  foolish 
one,  this  night  is  thy  soul  required  of  thee ; 
and  the  things  which  thou  hast  prepared, 
whose  shall  they  be  ?  So  is  he  that  layeth 
up  treasure  for  himself,  and  is  not  rich  toward 
God."  Therefore,  "take  heed,  and  keep  your- 
selves from  all  covetousness :  for  a  man's  life 
consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
which  he  possesseth."  * 

Again  he  observes,  "  Lay  up  for  yourselves 
treasures  in  heaven,  where  neither  moth  nor 
rust  doth  consume,  and  where  thieves  do  not 
break  through  nor  steal :  for  where  thy  treas- 

*  Luke  12,  16-21. 


j8         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

ure  is,  there  will  thy  heart  be  also."  Then, 
chiding  his  disciples  for  that  over-anxiety 
about  the  future  which  doubles  pain,  he  sums 
up,  laconically,  "  Be  not,  therefore,  anxious  for 
the  morrow :  for  the  morrow  will  be  anxious 
for  itself.  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof." 

Some  excellent  proverbs  and  sayings,  ex- 
pressing the  above  thought  of  Jesus,  are  afloat 
among  the  nations,  such  as  the  following : 

"Let  your  trouble  tarry  till  its  own  day 
comes." 

"  He  is  miserable  once,  who  feels  it ;  but 
twice,  who  fears  it  before  it  comes." 

Sir  Thomas  More  speaks,  if  I  remember 
well,  the  same  thought  in  rhyme  : 

"  If  evils  come  not,  then  our  fears  are  vain  ; 
And  if  they  do,  fear  but  augments  the  pain." 

Jesus  wears  no  fetters.  Freely  he  judges 
the  ways  of  men,  unblinded  by  conventional 
views  about  wealth,  social  customs,  or  filial 
obligations.  Continually,  therefore,  he  runs 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  f() 

counter  to  prevailing  opinion  and  prejudice 
Continually  he  says  and  does  the  unexpected. 
How  he  astonishes  the  hearer  by  showing  him 
to  himself  in  a  new  relation,  and  in  such  a  way 
as  to  convict  him  of  his  error !  How  he 
exposes  selfishness,  whether  manifested  by 
those  outside,  or  inside,  the  fold !  His  wit 
reveals  it  as  a  sunbeam  reveals  the  floating 
dust  of  a  room.  On  witnessing  at  some  place 
of  feasting  the  swine-like  exhibition  (very 
common  at  church-suppers  and  similar  min- 
istrations to  the  human  animal)  of  a  lot  of 
people  scrambling  for  the  best  seats  at  table, 
he  must  have  appreciated  the  comedy  as  well 
as  the  gravity  in  the  scene,  when  he  rebuked 
them  in  this  wise : 

"  When  thou  art  bidden  to  a  feast,  do  not 
sit  down  in  the  chief  seat,  lest  haply  a  more 
honorable  man  than  thou  be  bidden,  and  he 
that  bade  thee  and  him  shall  come  and  say  to 
thee,  Give  this  man  place;  and  then  shalt 
thou  begin  with  shame  to  take  the  lowest 
place.  But  when  thou  art  bidden,  go  and  sit 


So         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

down  in  the  lowest  place,  that  when  he  that 
hath  bidden  thee  cometh,  he  may  say  to  thee, 
Friend,  go  up  higher :  then  shalt  thou  have 
glory  in  the  presence  of  all  that  sit  at  meat 
with  thee.  For  every  one  that  exalteth  him- 
self shall  be  humbled ;  and  he  that  humbleth 
himself  shall  be  exalted."  * 

This  incident  in  the  life  of  Jesus  recalls  at 
the  present  writing  a  long-forgotten  incident 
in  the  life  of  Emerson,  as  related  to  me 
some  years  ago  by  a  friend.  One  evening 
when  Mr.  Emerson  was  to  lecture  in  a  small 
western  town,  he  was  invited  to  a  church 
supper;  and  there  he  was  treated  to  just 
about  the  sort  of  spectacle  recorded  in  Luke. 
In  serene,  benevolent  dignity  he  stood  at  one 
side  watching  the  unseemly  haste  to  get  first 
seated  at  the  table.  He  did  not  say  any  thing, 
as  did  Jesus;  but  the  amused  expression  of 
his  face  plainly  said,  "  O  human  biped,  thou 
art  a  comic  beast !  " 

The  dramatic  Luke  makes  Jesus  amaze  his 

*  Luke  14,  7-14. 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  8l 

hearers  still  more  when  he  prescribes  to  his 
host  the  following  remarkable  rule  of  conduct, 
exacting  an  unselfishness  so  positively  in  con- 
trast to  the  all  but  universal  practice  of 
men: 

"When  thou  makest  a  dinner  or  supper, 
call  not  thy  friends,  nor  thy  brethren,  nor  thy 
kinsmen,  nor  rich  neighbors ;  lest  haply  they 
also  bid  thee  again,  and  a  recompense  be 
made  thee.  But  when  thou  makest  a  feast, 
bid  the  poor,  the  maimed,  the  lame,  the  blind : 
and  thou  shalt  be  blessed ;  because  they  have 
not  wherewith  to  recompense  thee :  for  thou 
shalt  be  recompensed  in  the  resurrection  of 
the  just." 

A  striking  parallel  to  this  admonishment  of 
Jesus,  —  found  in  the  "  Phaedrus  "  of  Plato, 
written  some  four  hundred  years  before  the 
time  of  Jesus,  —  is  worthy  of  reproduction 
in  this  connection.  In  Plato's  dialogue, 
Socrates  is  reported  as  saying:  "In  gen- 
eral, when  you  make  a  feast,  invite  not  your 
friend,  but  the  beggar  and  the  empty  soul, 


82          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

for  they  will  love  you,  and  attend  you,  and 
come  about  your  doors,  and  will  be  the 
best  pleased  and  the  most  grateful,  and  will 
invoke  blessings  on  your  head."  * 

The  prompt  wit  of  Jesus  to  admonish  and 
rebuke,  by  planting  in  the  foreground  a  stand- 
ard of  life  and  duty  astonishingly  at  variance 
with  the  general  sentiment  of  his  hearers,  is 
displayed  on  divers  occasions.  Not  to  mul- 
tiply illustrations  in  this  connection,  let  ref- 
erence be  made  to  only  two  other  instances. 
The  one  is  that  of  the  dialogue  with  Simon 
(Luke  7,  36-50)  respecting  the  "fallen 
woman"  kneeling  repentant  at  the  master's 
feet.  Mark  the  refinement  of  Socratic  wit 
with  which  he  gets  the  "  holier-than-thou " 
Pharisee  committed  to  the  sentiment  he 
desires  to  exalt : 

"Simon,   I    have   something  to   say   unto 

thee.  ...  A  certain  lender  had  two  debtors  : 

the  one  owed  five  hundred  pence   and  the 

other  fifty.     When  they  had  not  wherewith 

*  Jowett's  "  Plato,"  I.,  539. 


Kindred  and  Neighbors  Sj 

to  pay,  he  forgave  them  both.  Which  of 
them  therefore  will  love  him  most  ?  Simon 
answered  and  said,  He,  I  suppose,  to  whom 
he  forgave  most.  And  he  said  unto  him, 
Thou  hast  rightly  judged.  And  turning  to 
the  woman,  he  said  unto  Simon,  Seest  thou 
this  woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  house,  thou 
gavest  me  no  water  for  my  feet :  but  she  hath 
wet  my  feet  with  her  tears,  and  wiped  them 
with  her  hair.  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss :  but 
she,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased 
to  kiss  my  feet  [or  kiss  much].  My  head 
with  oil  thou  didst  not  anoint :  but  she  hath 
anointed  my  feet  with  ointment.  Wherefore 
I  say  unto  thee,  Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are 
forgiven ;  for  she  loved  much :  but  to  whom 
little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little." 

The  other  instance  is  the  unique  treatment 
of  the  foolish  question  as  to  which  of  Jesus' 
followers  should  be  greatest  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
surprising,  or  better  calculated  to  produce  the 
desired  impression,  than  to  set  a  child  in  their 


<£/          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

midst,  with  the  remark,  "Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  except  ye  turn  and  become  as  little  chil- 
dren, ye  shall  in  nowise  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven," — and  so  forth.* 

*  Matt.  18,  1-7;  Mark  10,  13-16;  Luke  18,  15-17. 


V 
Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts 


Exclusive  of  the  abstract  sciences,  the  largest  and 
worthiest  portion  of  our  knowledge  consists  of  aphor- 
isms, and  the  greatest  and  best  of  men  is  but  an 
aphorism.  — Coleridge. 

Like  all  the  rabbis  of  the  time,  Jesus,  little  given  to 
consecutive  reasonings,  compressed  his  doctrine  into 
aphorisms  concise  and  of  an  expressive  form,  some- 
times strange  and  enigmatical.  — Renan. 

(86) 


V 

Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts 


"In  a  numerous  collection  of  our  Savior* s  apothegms 
there  is  not  to  be  found  one  example  of  sophistry  or 
of  false  subtilty,  or  of  anything  approaching  there- 
unto." —  PALEY. 

A  PROVERB  is  the  generalization  of 
much  human  experience  in  a  brief  say- 
ing that  sticks  to  the  memory  of  ordinary 
men.  As  Lord  John  Russell  has  finely  said, 
it  "  is  the  wit  of  one  man,  and  the  wisdom  of 
many."  In  the  mint  of  the  superb  wit  of  the 
man  of  Galilee  were  coined  the  most  pregnant 
sayings  which  have  gone  into  the  world's  per- 
manent circulation.  How  much  are  we  his 
debtors  daily  for  some  pleasantry,  or  epigram, 
that  gives  pith  and  point  to  speech !  This 


88         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

chapter  is  devoted  to  a  few  of  his  more  sen- 
tentious utterances  (some  of  them  in  the  form 
of  retorts),  which  do  not  fall  into  line  else- 
where in  these  pages.  The  experiences  of 
life  frequently  bring  these  to  the  lips : 

"  There  is  nothing  covered  which  shall  not 
be  revealed."  The  Latins  had  it,  "Time 
reveals  all  things." 

"  It  is  impossible  but  that  occasions  of 
stumbling  should  come,  but  woe  unto  him 
through  whom  they  come.'\ 

"  Agree  with  thine  adversary  quickly,  whilst 
thou  art  with  him  in  the  way." 

"  Wheresoever  the  carcass  is,  there  will  the 
eagles  be  gathered  " —  a  pithy  proverb  having 
more  than  local  application  to  the  Roman 
power  carrying  its  eagles  into  all  the  ancient 
world ;  having  the  solemn  and  universal  mean- 
ing that  moral  and  spiritual  degeneracy,  in 
individual  or  nation,  must  meet  stern  judg- 
ment, even  though  it  come  by  other  forces  of 
selfishness,  or  by  carrion  eagles  whatsoever. 

"Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen." 


PitJiy  Sayings  and  Retorts  89 

Only  a  few  respond  to  the  call  and  make 
themselves  worthy  to  be  chosen.  The 
Buddha  said,  "Few  are  there  among  men 
who  cross  the  river,  and  reach  the  goal. 
The  great  multitude  are  running  up  and 
down  the  shore." 

When  Jesus  urges  the  simple  fishermen  to 
become  apostles  of  his  truth,  he  wittily 
remarks,  "  Follow  me,  and  I  will  make  you 
fishers  of  men."  Exhorting  his  disciples  to 
let  their  "light  shine  before  men,"  he  says, 
"  A  city  set  on  a  hill  cannot  be  hid.  Neither 
do  men  light  a  lamp,  and  put  it  under  a 
bushel,  but  on  the  stand ;  and  it  shineth  unto 
all  that  are  in  the  house." 

Delegating  his  disciples  for  missionary 
work,  he  tells  them,  "The  harvest  is  plen- 
teous, but  the  laborers  are  few."  "The 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."  Again,  he 
admonishes  them,  "Behold  I  send  you  forth 
as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves  ;  be  ye,  there- 
fore, wise  as  serpents,  and  harmless  as  doves." 
"  If  they  have  called  the  master  of  the  house 


po         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Beelzebub,  how  much  more  shall  they  call 
them  of  his  household  !  " 

Realizing  the  tragic  fate  of  the  prophet  to 
bring  division  among  men  through  his  witness 
to  truth,  he  exclaimed,  "Think  not  that  I 
came  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword."  "A  man's 
foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household."  If 
objection  be  made  to  the  doctrine,  "love  your 
enemies,"  "do  good  to  them  that  hate  you," 
and  the  like,  how  surely  he  punctures  its  self- 
ishness, and  sweeps  away  all  props,  in  this 
keen  logic :  "  If  ye  love  them  that  love  you, 
what  thank  have  ye  ?  for  even  sinners  love 
those  that  love  them.  And  if  ye  do  good  to 
them  that  do  good  to  you,  what  thank  have 
ye  ?  for  even  sinners  do  the  same.  And  if  ye 
lend  to  them  of  whom  ye  hope  to  receive,  what 
thank  have  ye  ?  even  sinners  lend  to  sinners, 
to  receive  again  as  much.  Be  ye,  therefore, 
better  than  they,  even  as  your  heavenly  Father, 
who  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on 
the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on 
the  unjust."  * 

*  Matt.  5,  45 ;  Luke  6,  32-34. 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  qi 

When,  in  the  overflow  of  her  gratitude,  the 
Magdalen  pours  on  the  master's  head  the 
precious  ointment,  and  some  of  the  disciples 
(Judas,  according  to  "  John  ")  show  displeasure 
because  it  might  have  been  sold  for  the  benefit 
of  the  poor,  he,  with  smiling  serenity,  reminds 
them,  "  Ye  have  the  poor  always  with  you, 
and  whensoever  ye  will  ye  can  do  them  good, 
but  me  ye  have  not  always." 

Having  been  questioned  as  to  one's  duty 
toward  those  in  authority,  he  discriminately 
says,  "The  scribes  and  the  Pharisees  sit  on 
Moses*  seat ;  all  things,  therefore,  whatsoever 
they  bid  you,  these  do  and  observe ;  but  do 
not  ye  after  their  works  ;  for  they  say,  and  do 
not."  This  is  in  line  with  the  Spanish  saying, 
"  Do  as  the  friar  says,  and  not  as  he  does." 

Hearing  some  of  his  countrymen  boast  of 
having  Abraham  for  their  father,  he  presses 
home  to  their  attention  the  chasm  between 
their  professions  and  practices,  in  the  signifi- 
cant reflection,  "  If  ye  were  Abraham's  chil- 
dren ye  would  do  the  works  of  Abraham." 


Q2          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

When  he  perceives  that  the  multitude  are 
prompted  to  follow  him  by  motives  belonging 
to  the  animal  man  rather  than  the  spiritual 
man,  he  turns  on  them  with  the  just  rebuke, 
"  Ye  seek  me,  not  because  ye  saw  signs 
[evidences  of  power  to  satisfy  spiritual 
hunger]  ;  but  because  ye  ate  of  the  loaves, 
and  were  filled.0  In  these  latter  days  we 
frequently  hear  the  sarcasm,  "  they  seek  after 
the  loaves  and  fishes,"  flung  at  a  class  of 
office-seekers  whose  profuseness  in  phrases 
of  patriotism  is  only  exceeded  by  their  zeal 
in  henchmanship  to  the  dispensers  of  political 
patronage. 

People  profess  that  they  will  follow  him 
whithersoever  he  goes ;  and  with  a  touch  of 
humor,  a  touch  of  sadness  too,  he  describes 
the  homelessness  his  mission  necessitates,  in 
the  saying,  "The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the 
birds  of  heaven  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of 
man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head/'  Then, 
taking  these  people  at  their  word,  he  summons 
them  forthwith  to  follow  him  and  wholly  sur- 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  yj 

render  themselves  to  the  new  movement  for 
righteousness*  sake.  But  they  offer  excuses, 
both  on  account  of  the  dead  and  the  living, 
and  so  the  pregnant  replies :  "  Let  the  dead 
bury  their  dead,"  and,  "  No  man,  having  put 
his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  backward, 
is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God." 

An  exalted  faith  had  Jesus  in  the  reform- 
able  capacity  of  men,  but  he  had  a  notion, 
likewise,  that  what  we  call  heredity  and 
environment  figured  somewhat  in  the  matter. 
And  the  notion  very  likely  grew  upon  him  as 
he  came  in  contact  more  and  more  with  differ- 
ing varieties  of  the  genus  homo. 

"  Continuous  pounding  will  reform  the 
world,"  said  a  distinguished  divine.  Oh, 
yes,  —  but,  meanwhile,  exceedingly  trying  is 
the  world  to  the  patience  even  of  the  saints ! 
Jesus,  the  lofty  idealist  and  patient  son  of 
faith,  learned  by  repeated  failure  how  hard  a 
thing  it  is  to  lodge  the  divine  word  in  some 
ears.  There  were  those  who  could  not  receive 
it  if  they  would,  and  others  who  would  not 


94         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

receive  it  if  they  could  — "  for  their  hardness 
of  heart "  would  not  receive  it.  Hence  the 
significant  remark,  "He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear."  Hence,  too,  the  oft- 
quoted  admonition,  "Give  not  that  which  is 
holy  unto  the  dogs,  neither  cast  your  pearls 
before  swine,  lest  haply  they  trample  them 
under  their  feet,  and  turn  and  rend  you." 

The  above  passage  is  thought  by  some  to 
have  been  written  in  the  interest  of  the  Peter- 
party,  as  against  the  Paul-party.  To  me,  how- 
ever, it  sounds  genuine,  and  the  connection 
above  intimated  seems  natural.  Jesus  verified, 
in  the  years  of  his  ministry,  the  everlasting 
truth  of  similar  sayings,  which  had  sprung 
from  the  oriental  mind  and  passed  on  from 
the  far  East ;  which  indeed  had  come  to  him 
early,  in  the .  proverbs  of  his  own  Bible, 
namely,  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  imparting 
high  things  to  the  very  foolish  or  the  very 
wicked.  This  is  not  a  pleasant  conclusion, 
but,  being  drawn  from  general  human  experi- 
ence, it  has  found  expression  among  many 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  y$ 

people,  from  the  lore  of  the  ancient  Brahmins 
to  the  "  Faust "  of  modern  Goethe.  In  the 
book  of  Proverbs  are  such  sayings  as  these  : 

"  He  that  reproveth  a  scorner  getteth  him- 
self shame;  and  he  that  rebuketh  a  wicked 
man  getteth  himself  a  blot."  "Speak  not  in 
the  ears  of  a  fool;  for  he  will  despise  the 
wisdom  of  thy  words. "  The  Jews  had  also 
the  saying,  "A  dog  returneth  to  his  vomit, 
and  a  hog  that  is  washed  to  his  wallowings 
in  the  mire."  "Though  you  anoint  an  ass  all 
over  with  perfumes,  it  feels  not  your  fondness, 
but  will  turn  again  and  kick  you."  So  says 
the  Veman.*  The  Tamal  has  it:  "Though 
religious  instruction  be  whispered  into  the  ears 
of  the  ass,  nothing  will  come  of  it  but  the 
accustomed  braying."  *  One  of  the  Buddha's 
parables  declares :  "  A  fool,  though  he  live 
in  the  company  of  the  wise,  understands 
nothing  of  the  true  doctrine,  as  a  spoon  tastes 
not  the  flavor  of  the  soup." 

Varied  and  striking  is  the  utterance  of  the 

*  Doctor  Shutter's  "  Wit  and  Humor  of  the  Bible." 


C)6          The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

same  truth  among  the  moderns :  "  The  sow 
prefers  bran  to  roses  "  (French).  "  To  wash 
the  head  of  an  ass  is  loss  of  suds  "  (Spanish). 
Some  character  of  Shakespeare  exclaims,  — 

"Wisdom  and  goodness  to  the  vile  seem  vile." 
Goethe's  "  Faust  "  has  the  line,  — 

"  Wise  words  in  dull  ears  are  but  lifeless  lore  "  ; 

while  another  German  speaks  in  humorous 
rhyme,  — 

"Set  a  frog  on  a  golden  stool, 
Off  it  hops  again  into  the  pool." 

When  questioned  about  riches  and  rich 
men,  the  working  of  Jesus'  mind  is  prompt 
and  facile,  in  a  way  peculiarly  his  own. 
While  some  of  the  utterances  in  Luke  may 
be  taken  as  expressing  the  antipathy  of  the 
author  of  that  book  toward  the  wealthy 
classes,  it  is  not  permissible  to  cast  out  on 
this  ground  all  passages  that  do  not  happen 
to  adjust  well  to  the  western  mind  in  an  age 
of  commercialism. 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  <?/ 

Take  the  reflections  called  forth  by  the 
scene  with  the  rich  young  man,  described  in 
all  the  synoptic  gospels.  The  narrator  relates 
that  when  told  to  part  with  the  "great  pos- 
sessions "  which  were  preventing  him  from  a 
complete  espousal  of  the  cause  for  which  the 
master  was  fighting  the  incomparable  fight, 
"he  went  away  sorrowful."  The  writer  once 
heard  Phillips  Brooks  remark  that  the  young 
man  was  enjoined  to  give  away  his  wealth 
because  he  did  not  know  how  to  use  it.  The 
attitude  of  this  truly  noble  divine,  and  of  Jesus 
as  he  presented  it,  seems  to  have  been  much 
the  same  as  that  of  the  Buddha.  The  Hindu 
sage,  we  infer  from  the  records,  pronounced 
not  against  wealth  and  power,  but  against  the 
selfish  use  of  them,  and  "the  cleaving  to 
wealth  and  power." 

Whatever  the  reader  thinks  about  Jesus' 
advice  to  the  rich  young  man,  mark  the  drift 
of  the  conversation  that  follows  close  upon  it 
(Mark  10,  17-27).  First  he  startles  his  dis- 
ciples with  an  oriental  exaggeration,  and  then 


$8         The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

he  puts  in  the  qualifications  which  link  his 
teaching  closer  to  our  modern  view  of  the 
matter. 

"  Looking  round  about,  he  saith  unto  his 
disciples,  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have 
riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  !  And 
the  disciples  were  amazed  at  his  words.  But 
Jesus  answereth  them,  Children,  how  hard  is 
it  for  them  that  trust  in  riches  to  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  God !  It  is  easier  for  a  camel 
to  go  through  the  needle's  eye  than  for  a  rich 
man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  And 
they  were  astonished  exceedingly,  saying  unto 
him,  Then  who  can  be  saved  ? " 

Faith  in  an  omnipotent  power  at  once  fur- 
nishes the  answer : 

"With  men  it  is  impossible,  but  not  with 
God  :  for  all  things  are  possible  with  God." 

The  Italians  have  a  saying,  "He  that  is 
afraid  of  the  devil  does  not  grow  rich  "  ;  while 
the  French  put  it  in  this  way  :  "  To  grow  rich 
one  needs  but  to  turn  his  back  on  God."  To 
many  literal  people  such  sayings  are  stumbling- 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts  99 

blocks.  They  must  be  taken  as  "truth  on 
the  half-shell,"  else  are  they  positively  mis- 
chievous. 

Every  teacher  and  leader  of  men  who  speaks 
with  brave  sincerity  about  the  abuses  of 
wealth,  and  other  abuses  on  the  part  of  those 
having  power  and  influence,  has  the  devil 
appear  to  him  in  the  guise  of  friend  or  foe 
warning  against  straight  speech,  lest  it  bring 
loss  of  money,  position,  friendship,  —  loss  of 
this,  that,  or  the  other  personal  advantage. 
More  than  once,  I  doubt  not,  Jesus  heard  the 
caution,  — "  Look  out,  my  young  man ;  you 
will  make  yourself  very  unpopular.  Believe 
as  you  like.  In  private  speak  for  yourself: 
but  in  public  speak  for  others." 

The  caution  served,  once  at  least,  to  call 
from  Jesus  one  of  his  most  striking  paradoxes, 
promulgating  a  sentiment  contrary  to  that  in 
general  acceptance,  but  profoundly  true  never- 
theless. They  warn  him  against  the  danger 
of  unpopularity :  he  warns  them  against  the 
danger  of  popularity.  "  Woe  unto  you  when 


IOO       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

all  men  shall  speak  well  of  you !  for  in  the 
same  manner  did  their  fathers  to  the  false 
prophets." 

In  similar  vein  spoke  the  Chinese  sage, 
Confucius  :  "  When  the  multitude  hate  a  man, 
it  is  necessary  to  examine  into  the  case. 
When  the  multitude  like  a  man,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  examine  into  the  case."  So  also  said 
a  Greek,  something  like  this :  "  When  I  am 
popular  I  am  afraid  of  myself." 

Did  Jesus  sometimes  feel  as  did  Carlyle 
when  he  wrote  to  Emerson :  "  If  the  Devil 
will  be  pleased  to  set  all  the  popularities 
against  you,  .  .  .  perhaps  that  is  of  all  things 
the  very  kindest  any  Angel  can  do  "  ? 

In  these  days  of  much  shallow  shouting  of 
"  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei"  it  might  be  salutary 
for  politicians  to  wear  in  public  the  above  say- 
ings, after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient  Jews  who 
used  to  go  to  worship  with  bands  of  scripture 
on  their  person. 

A  Jewish  proverb  says,  "  If  the  people  wish 
to  silence  a  man  they  must  stop  his  mouth 


Pithy  Sayings  and  Retorts          IOI 

with  broth."  But  here  was  a  man,  a  prophet 
of  Israel  indeed,  whose  mouth  could  not  be 
stopped  by  broth,  nor  by  fear  of  unpopularity, 
nor  by  fear  of  losing  life  itself.  Tempted  by 
the  affectionate  but  timid  Peter,  his  heroic 
passion  for  truth  and  right  gave  vent  to  the 
most  astounding  rebuke  in  history,  and  the 
profoundest  of  all  his  paradoxes :  "  Get  thee 
behind  me,  Satan  :  thou  art  a  stumbling-block 
unto  me :  for  thou  mindest  not  the  things  of 
God,  but  the  things  of  men.  .  .  .  Whosoever 
would  save  his  life,  shall  lose  it ;  and  who- 
soever shall  lose  his  life,  for  my  sake  and  the 
gospel's,  shall  save  it.  For  what  does  it  profit 
a  man  to  gain  the  whole  world,  and  forfeit  his 
soul  ?  or  what  should  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  soul  ? "  "  Be  not  afraid  of  those  who 
can  kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the 
soul:  but  rather  fear  Him  that  is  able  to 
destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  hell." 


VI 
Opposition  and  Quotation 


A  great  man  quotes  bravely,  and  will  not  draw  on 
his  invention  when  his  memory  serves  him  with  a  word 
as  good.  .  .  .  Genius  borrows  nobly.  When  Shake- 
speare is  charged  with  debts  to  his  authors,  Landor 
replies  :  "  Yet  he  was  more  original  than  his  originals. 
He  breathed  upon  dead  bodies,  and  brought  them  into 
life."  .  .  .  Wordsworth,  as  soon  as  he  heard  a  good 
thing,  caught  it  up,  meditated  upon  it,  and  very  soon 
reproduced  it  in  his  conversation  and  writing.  If  De 
Quincey  said,  "That  is  what  I  told  you,"  he  replied, 
"No:  that  is  mine,  —  mine,  and  not  yours."  On 
the  whole,  we  like  the  valor  of  it.  ...  It  betrays 
the  consciousness  that  truth  is  the  property  of  no  indi- 
vidual, but  is  the  treasure  of  all  men.  — Emerson. 

People  are  always  talking  about  originality,  but  what 
do  they  mean  ?  As  soon  as  we  are  born  the  world 
begins  to  work  upon  us  ;  and  this  goes  on  to  the 
end.  .  .  .  If  I  could  give  an  account  of  all  that  I 
owe  to  great  predecessors  and  contemporaries,  there 
would  be  but  a  small  balance  in  my  favor. 

—  Goethe. 
(104) 


VI 


Opposition  and  Quotation 


"Have  ye  not  read  in  your  Bible  ?  "  —  JESUS. 

REPEATED  reading  of  the  gospel  nar- 
ratives has  touched  in  me  more  and 
more  the  dramatic  sense.  I  follow  the 
fortunes  of  a  hero  whose  swing  is  ever  more 
heroic  as  the  scenes  shift  on  —  under  the 
laws  of  growth,  a  spiritual  hero  ;  speech  tak- 
ing form  and  color  from  meditation  sad  and 
solitary,  and  from  enlarging  experience  with 
men  and  their  ways. 

Thus  far  we  have  not  seen  him  on  unfriendly 
terms  with  the  established  and  orthodox  sects 
of  his  day.  For  a  while  he  was  welcome  to 
speak  in  the  synagogues,  invited  to  social 


IO6        The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

gatherings  at  the  houses  of  the  Pharisees,  — 
looked  upon  no  doubt  by  the  latter  as  a  prom- 
ising young  man  whom  it  would  be  very 
desirable  to  keep  within  the  fold.  Like  great 
reformers  in  general,  political  or  religious,  it 
was  his  hope  at  first  to  regenerate  society  at 
large  by  working  in  unison  with  the  old 
organization.  Gradually,  however,  irreconcil- 
able differences  are  made  manifest. 

The  instructions  of  "time  and  tide"  force 
him  to  look  upon  the  leaders  of  the  Pharisees, 
and  of  the  opposite  party  to  them,  the  Sad- 
ducees,  as  "blind  guides,"  wily,  and  cunning 
in  resource.  To  meet  them,  how  does  he 
equip  himself  ?  Surely,  not  with  the  heavy 
and  juiceless  learning  of  the  Jewish  schools ; 
for  this  too  often  petrified  the  man  —  after 
the  fashion  of  the  average  divinity  school, 
which  Theodore  Parker  described  in  his  sharp 
sarcasm  :  "  It  used  to  take  the  Egyptians 
seven  years  to  make  a  mummy  out  of  a  dead 
man ;  but  it  only  takes  Harvard  Divinity 
School  three  years  to  make  a  mummy  out  of 


Opposition  and  Quotation  IOJ 

a  live  man."  Happily  the  sarcasm  has  much 
less  point  now  respecting  that  particular  insti- 
tution. 

Of  foreign  lore,  Greek  or  Hindu,  Jesus 
seems  to  have  known  but  little ;  though  some 
floating  fragments  of  the  literatures  and  relig- 
ions of  other  peoples,  East  and  West,  may 
have  lodged  with  him  during  all  those  years 
concerning  which  the  gospels  are  strangely 
silent.  Not  from  these  sources  then  did  his 
equipment  come ;  but  rather  from  self-reliant 
reflection,  swift  intuition,  and  a  goodly  under- 
standing of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  which 
his  opponents  expounded  as  authority  in  relig- 
ion and  morals. 

An  interesting  phase  of  his  wit  and  humor 
in  dealing  with  opposition  lies  in  his  use  of 
apt  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament. 
Sometimes  these  are  applied  to  himself, 
sometimes  to  the  age  in  which  he  lives, 
sometimes  to  certain  classes  of  his  country- 
men. Thus,  recognizing  in  the  multitude 
those  afflicted  with  gross  and  willful  blind- 


IO8       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

ness,   he    represents   them   as   fulfilling  the 
prophecy  of  Isaiah, — 

"  By  hearing  ye  shall  hear,  and  shall  in  nowise  under- 
stand ; 

And  seeing  ye  shall  see,  and  shall  in  no  wise  perceive. 
For  this  people's  heart  is  waxed  gross, 
And  their  eyes  they  have  closed  ; 
Lest  haply  they  should  perceive  with  their  eyes, 
And  hear  with  their  ears, 
And  understand  with  their  heart, 
And  should  turn  again, 
And  I  should  heal  them." 

The  opponents  of  Jesus  were  very  stren- 
uous for  the  local  and  external  elements  of 
their  religion,  while  he  valued  the  elements 
universal  and  internal.  They  made  great  pre- 
tensions to  a  knowledge  of  the  Law  of  Moses, 
and  to  a  veneration  for  the  word  of  the  fathers. 
For  that  reason,  and  because  he  was  made 
to  feel  their  proud  and  underrating  attitude 
toward  him,  it  need  not  seem  strange  to  think 
of  his  having  a  certain  satisfaction  in  turning 


Opposition  and  Quotation  IOC} 

their  own  scripture  against  them.  At  any 
rate,  when  they  came  with  carping  questions 
and  accusations,  he  had  ready  the  acknowl- 
edged Word.  Not  that  the  Word  was 
authority  with  him  above  the  progressive 
private  soul,  the  original  source  of  the  Word, 
but  that  they,  at  least  in  theory,  had  so  made 
it  themselves. 

Do  they  complain  that  he  or  his  disciples 
transgress  the  Law  or  some  tradition  of  the 
elders,  straightway  come  from  him  citations 
to  show  them  the  real  offenders  in  much 
weightier  matters  :  "  Did  not  Moses  give  you 
the  Law,  and  yet  none  of  you  doeth  it  ? " 

To  adjust  it  to  the  changing  conditions  and 
tastes  of  the  people,  the  original  Mosaic  Law 
had  been  twisted  by  ingenious  interpretation 
of  the  scribes  until  it  became  in  many  respects 
practically  of  no  effect.  Sometimes  this  was 
for  the  better,  sometimes  for  the  worse. 
Layer  after  layer  of  tradition  accumulated, 
prescribing  one  or  another  ceremonial  trivial- 
ity. On  behalf  of  the  tradition,  Jesus  was 


IIO       TJie  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

peremptorily  asked  why  his  disciples  ate  bread 
"with  defiled  hands,"  that  is,  without  observ- 
ing the  elders'  rites  of  purification  before 
meals.  Jesus  makes  no  defense,  but  becomes 
the  accuser  himself :  "  Full  well  do  ye  reject 
the  commandment  of  God,  that  ye  may  keep 
your  tradition."  [Some  rabbi  even  declared, 
"The  words  of  the  scribes  are  more  noble 
than  the  words  of  the  Law."]  "For  Moses 
said,  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother ;  and 
he  that  speaketh  evil  of  father  or  mother,  let 
him  die  the  death ;  but  ye  say,  If  a  man  shall 
say  to  his  father  or  mother,  That  wherewith 
thou  might est  have  been  profited  by  me  is 
Corbaii,  that  is  to  say,  Given  to  God,  ye  no 
longer  suffer  him  to  do  aught  for  his  father 
or  his  mother  [under  pretext  of  helping  the 
church  you  deprive  the  parent  of  rightful 
support],  making  void  the  word  of  God  by 
your  tradition,  which  ye  have  delivered ;  and 
many  such  like  things  ye  do."  * 

Touching  the  word  Corban,  Luther,  with 

*  Matt.  15,  1-20 ;  Mark  7,  5-23. 


Opposition  and  Quotation  III 

characteristic  sarcasm,  remarked,  "As  much 
as  to  say,  Dear  father,  I  would  willingly  give 
it  [the  offering]  to  thee,  but  it  is  Corban :  I 
count  it  better  to  give  it  to  God  than  to  thee, 
and  it  will  help  thee  better." 

Having  put  his  complainants  in  the  above 
undesirable  light  before  the  people,  Jesus  said 
to  them,  "Hear  me,  all  of  you,  and  under- 
stand :  Not  that  which  entereth  into  the 
mouth  defileth  the  man;  but  that  which 
proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth " ;  because 
"things  which  proceed  out  of  the  mouth 
come  out  of  the  heart :  evil  thoughts,  fornica- 
tions, thefts,  murders,  adulteries,  covetings, 
wickednesses,  deceit,  lasciviousness,  an  evil 
eye,  railing,  pride,  foolishness  ;  all  these  evil 
things  proceed  from  within,  and  defile  the 
man."  .  .  .  "Well  did  Isaiah  prophesy  of 
these  hypocrites : 

€t  « This  people  honoreth  me  with  their  lips  ; 
Yet  their  heart  is  far  from  me  ; 
But  in  vain  do  they  worship  me, 
Teaching  as  their  doctrines  the  precepts  of  men.'  ' 


112       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Withdrawing  to  one  side  with  his  disciples, 
he  is  told  that  the  Pharisees  were  offended  at 
his  saying.  But  he  answers  back :  "  Every 
plant  which  my  heavenly  Father  planted  not 
shall  be  rooted  up.  Let  them  alone :  they 
are  blind  guides,  and  if  the  blind  guide  the 
blind,  shall  they  not  both  fall  into  the 
ditch  ? " 

On  being  repeatedly  questioned  in  public 
by  his  antagonists,  Jesus  saw  fit,  on  one  occa- 
sion at  least,  to  take  the  offensive.  He  did 
so  in  the  important  matter  of  the  long- 
expected  Messiah,  as  whom,  in  some  quarters, 
he  had  come  to  be  regarded.  Perhaps  he 
desired  to  supplant  the  general  aristocratic 
notion  of  the  divinity  of  kings,  and  the 
superiority  of  royal  lineation,  by  the  dem- 
ocratic notion  that  the  Messiah  might  spring 
from  the  loins  of  the  common  people,  and 
not  of  necessity  be  a  descendant  of  David, 
as  the  Pharisees  and  scribes  especially  main- 
tained. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  he  asked  them,  "  What 


Opposition  and  Quotation  7/J 

think  ye  of  the  Christ  ?  Whose  son  is  he  ? " 
Getting  the  anticipated  reply,  "The  son  of 
David,"  he  quotes  against  them  the  Psalms, 
which  all  parties  accepted  as  the  veritable 
utterances  of  that  king.  "  How  then  doth 
David  in  the  spirit  call  him  Lord,  saying,  — 

*"  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord, 
Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand, 
Until  I  put  thine  enemies  underneath  thy  feet '  ? 

If  David  then  calleth  him  Lord,  how  is  he 
his  son  ? " 

Concerning  the  Mosaic  Law  touching  the 
matter  of  divorce,  some  of  the  rabbis  had 
interpreted  it,  after  a  very  lax  fashion,  to  the 
disfavor  of  woman.  Even  the  good  Hillel 
(preceding  Jesus  by  only  a  few  years)  declared 
it  sufficient  cause  for  divorce  that  the  wife 
had  burned  her  husband's  dinner,  or  perchance 
had  made  it  too  salty  —  the  husband  of  course 
being  the  judge. 

Very  loose  indeed  had  public  sentiment 
become  when  the  Pharisees  undertook  to  trip 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

the  Galilean  on  this  question.  "  Is  it  lawful," 
they  ask,  "  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  for 
every  cause  ? "  *  And  he  makes  answer  by 
referring  to  the  Pentateuch  : 

"Have  ye  not  read  that  He  which  made 
them  from  the  beginning  made  them  male 
and  female,  and  said,  For  this  cause  shall  a 
man  leave  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave 
to  his  wife ;  and  the  twain  shall  become  one 
flesh  ?  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether, let  not  man  put  asunder. " 

To  this  the  questioners  not  inaptly  rejoin, 
"  Why  then  did  Moses  command  to  give  a  bill 
of  divorcement,  and  to  put  her  away  ? "  They 
seemed  to  have  drawn  him  into  an  inconsist- 
ency ;  but  he  wisely  and  wittily  turns  the  edge 
of  the  second  question  with  the  reply : 

"  Moses  for  your  hardness  of  heart  suffered 
you  to  put  away  your  wives;  but  from  the 
beginning  it  hath  not  been  so."  In  other 
words,  Moses,  like  every  practical  lawgiver, 
was  constrained  to  adjust  his  laws  to  the 
*  Matt  19,  3-8 ;  Mark  10,  1-9. 


Opposition  and  Quotation  7/5 

social  conditions  and  moral  development  of 
his  people.  Not  his  laxity,  but  the  laxity  of 
the  fathers,  made  the  laxity  of  the  Law.  The 
reply  is  in  the  vein  of  the  response  made  by 
Solon  when  questioned  as  to  whether  he  had 
given  the  best  laws  to  the  Athenians.  He 
wisely  answered,  "  I  have  given  them  the  best 
they  were  able  to  bear."  It  was  also  in  this 
spirit  of  wise  expediency  that  Lincoln  wrote 
to  a  friend,  "  Die  when  I  may,  I  want  it  said 
of  me  by  those  who  know  me  best  that  I 
always  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  flower 
when  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow." 

Somewhat  embarrassing  and  nettling  to  his 
adversaries  is  Jesus'  way  of  turning  on  them 
with  the  remark,  "  Have  ye  not  read  in  your 
Bible  that  —  ?  "  and  so  forth ;  or,  "  Ye  do  err, 
not  knowing  the  scripture  "  ;  sometimes  add- 
ing, "nor  the  power  of  God."  Embarrassing 
and  nettling,  because  they  especially  plumed 
themselves  on  being  authority  in  these  very 
matters.  When  they  show  irritation  at  the 
enthusiastic  hosannas  shouted  in  the  temple 


lid       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

even  by  the  children,  he  asks  with  somewhat 
provoking  serenity,  "  Did  ye  never  read,  Out 
of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  thou 
hast  perfected  praise  ? "  On  being  threatened 
with  stoning  for  the  mystical  saying,  "  I  and  the 
Father  are  one,"  he  coolly  says,  "Many  good 
works  have  I  showed  you  from  the  Father ; 
for  which  of  those  works  do  ye  stone  me  ? " 
And  when  they  reply,  "  It  is  because,  being  a 
man,  he  makes  himself  God,"  he  asks  again, 
"  Is  it  not  written  in  your  Law,  I  said  ye  are 
gods  ? " 

How  trenchant  and  deep  plough  the  rejoin- 
ders of  Jesus  concerning  the  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  !  On  the  charge  being  preferred 
that  his  disciples  profaned  that  day  by  pluck- 
ing ears  of  corn,  he  instantly  cuts  off  contro- 
versy by  simply  reminding  the  complainants 
that  the  accused  did  but  follow  a  precedent 
made  by  their  most  venerated  king,  and  even 
by  the  priests  themselves. 

"  Have  ye  not  read  what  David  did  when 
he  was  hungered  ?  .  .  .  how  he  entered  into 


Opposition  and  Quotation  IIJ 

the  house  of  God,  and  did  eat  the  sacred  shew- 
bread,  which  it  was  not  lawful  for  him  to  eat, 
neither  for  them  that  were  with  him,  but  only 
for  the  priests  ? "  Or,  "  Have  ye  not  read,  in 
the  Law,  how  on  the  Sabbath-day  the  priests 
in  the  temple  [by  their  sacrifices]  profane  the 
Sabbath,  and  are  guiltless  ?  "  They  complain 
of  his  healing  on  the  Sabbath,  and  he  rejoins 
that  to  keep  the  Law  of  Moses  they  inflict  on 
little  children  on  the  Sabbath  the  barbarous 
rite  of  circumcision  ;  "  and  shall  I  not  make 
the  sick  every  whit  whole  ?  Judge  not  accord- 
ing to  appearance,  but  judge  righteous  judg- 
ment." * 

On  one  occasion,  when  ministering  to  a 
woman,  he  indignantly  asks  the  objectors, 
"You  hypocrites,  does  not  each  one  of  you 
loose  his  ox  or  ass  from  the  crib,  and  water 
him,  on  the  Sabbath-day  ?  And  shall  not  this 
daughter  of  Abraham  be  loosed  [from  her 
infirmity]  on  the  Sabbath-day  ?  "  At  another 
time,  the  case  being  that  of  a  man,  he  asks  if 
*  Matt.  12,  1-6. 


II 8       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

they  had  an  ox  or  a  sheep  fall  into  a  pit  on 
the  Sabbath,  whether  they  would  not  straight- 
way draw  him  out  ?  Taking  silence  for  con- 
sent, the  conclusion  follows:  "How  much, 
then,  is  a  man  of  more  value  than  a  sheep  !  " 
Again  he  asks,  "  Is  it  lawful  on  the  Sabbath- 
day  to  do  good,  or  to  do  harm  ?  to  save  life, 
or  destroy  it  ? " 

Apropos  of  the  above  pertinent  questions 
of  Jesus,  there  is  an  interesting  passage  in 
the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  which 
book,  in  the  Council  of  Nice,  failed  by  a  vote 
or  two  to  become  sacred.  Pilate,  in  taking 
the  testimony  respecting  the  accusation  made 
against  Jesus,  asks  certain  witnesses,  "Why 
have  the  Jews  a  mind  to  kill  Jesus  ? "  Being  an- 
swered, "  They  are  angry  because  he  wrought 
cures  on  the  Sabbath-day,"  Pilate  sarcastically 
retorts,  "Will  they  kill  him  for  a  good 
work?" 

With  what  sharp  logic  the  Galilean  deals 
with  conventional  objections,  so  as  to  bring 
a  universal  principle  of  common  sense  and 


Opposition  and  Quotation 

common  humanity  to  govern  in  the  use  of 
the  Sabbath  !  Talk  of  profaning  the  temple : 
"  One  greater  than  the  temple  is  here.  But 
if  ye  had  known  what  this  meaneth,  *  I  desire 
mercy,  and  not  sacrifice/  ye  would  not  have 
condemned  the  guiltless.  For  the  Son  of 
man  is  lord  of  the  Sabbath/'  Or,  still 
stronger,  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man, 
and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath/' 

"  Inspired  common  sense "  is  the  mother 
of  such  wit. 


VII 
Miracles ;    Practical  Religion 


Men  will  not  see  that  miracle  is  a  perception  of  the 
soul ;  a  vision  of  the  Divine  behind  Nature  ;  a  psy- 
chical crisis,  analogous  to  that  of  JEncas  on  the  last 
day  of  Troy,  which  reveals  to  us  the  heavenly  powers 
prompting  and  directing  human  action.  Their  passion 
for  the  facts  which  are  objective,  isolated,  and  past, 
prevents  them  from  seeing  the  facts  which  are  eternal 
and  spiritual.  They  can  only  adore  what  comes  to 
them  from  without.  As  soon  as  their  dramaturgy  is 
interpreted  symbolically  all  seems  to  them  lost.  They 
must  have  their  local  prodigies  —  their  vanished  un- 
verifiable  miracles,  because  for  them  the  divine  is  there 
and  only  there.  — AmieL 

Let  no  man  deceive  you  ;  he  that  doeth  righteous- 
ness is  righteous.  In  this  the  children  of  God  are 
manifest :  whosoever  doeth  not  righteousness  is  not  of 
God.  He  that  loveth  not%knoweth  not  God,  for  God 

is  love.  — John. 

(122) 


VII 

Miracles ;    Practical  Religion 


"The  desire  to  perform  miracles  arises  either  from 
covetousness  or  from  vanity"  "What  is  more 
wondrous,  more  mysterious,  more  miraculous  than 
Amitabba  [that  is,  light  or  truth]?" 

— THE  BUDDHA. 

"Be  ye  doers  of  the  word,  and  not  hearers  only,  delud- 
ing your  own  selves.  .  .  .  Pure  religion  and 
undejiled  before  our  God  and  Father  is  this,  to  visit 
the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to 
keep  one9 s  self  unspotted  from  the  world." 

— JAMES. 

ONE  of  the  most  invincible  obstacles  to 
the  acceptance  of  Jesus  by  the  people 
was  their  craving  for  miracles.  He  had  satis- 
fied them  very  well  in  reference  to  healing 
certain  diseases,  for  the  successful  treatment 
of  which,  it  is  quite  believable,  his  transcend- 


124       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

ent  spiritual  nature  eminently  fitted  him.  But 
they  wanted  further  manifestation  of  power 
for  wonder-working.  This  gives  significance 
to  the  saying  of  Jesus,  "  Except  ye  see  signs 
and  wonders,  ye  will  in  no  wise  believe  "  ;  and 
to  Paul's  independent  and  discriminative  re- 
mark, "  Jews  ask  for  a  sign,  and  Greeks  seek 
after  wisdom." 

To  teach  spiritual  truth,  and  demonstrate 
it  with  a  life  to  match, — for  the  Jewish 
multitude  this  was  not  sufficient.  For  the 
multitude,  is  it  ever  sufficient  ?  The  truth- 
loving  Buddha,  vexed  by  this  disposition,  for- 
bade his  disciples  to  cater  to  it,  and  applied 
the  term  "  miracle-mongers  "  to  those  who  did. 
The  enemies  of  Jesus  did  not  fail  to  take 
advantage  of  it  and  press  him  in  several  ways 
to  prove  his  Messianic  mission  by  such 
material  evidence.  Once  he  puts  them  off 
with  the  pregnant  utterance,  "The  kingdom 
of  God  cometh  not  with  observation ;  neither 
shall  they  say,  Lo  here  !  or,  Lo  there  !  for  lo, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion 

Disappointed  in  getting  an  answer  not  good 
for  campaign  purposes,  they  come  at  him, 
another  time,  with  a  more  specific  request. 
They  ask  him  to  show  them  a  sign  from 
heaven,  and  he  turns  on  them  sharply :  — 

"  When  it  is  evening,  ye  say,  It  will  be  fair 
weather,  for  the  sky  is  red.  And  in  the 
morning,  It  will  be  foul  weather  to-day,  for 
the  sky  is  red  and  lowering.  Ye  know  how 
to  discern  the  face  of  the  sky ;  but  ye  cannot 
discern  the  signs  of  the  time.  An  evil  and 
adulterous  generation  seeketh  after  a  sign/'  * 

I  like  the  form  in  which  this  reply  is  given 
in  Luke  12,  54-57.  It  may  have  been  spoken 
thus  differently  on  different  occasions  : 

"  When  ye  see  a  cloud  rising  in  the  west, 
straightway  ye  say,  There  cometh  a  shower ; 
and  so  it  cometh  to  pass.  And  when  ye  see 
a  south  wind  blowing,  ye  say,  There  will  be  a 
scorching  heat ;  and  it  cometh  to  pass.  Ye 
hypocrites,  ye  know  how  to  interpret  the  face 
of  the  earth  and  the  heavens ;  but  how  is  it 
*  Matt.  1 6,  1-4. 


126       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

that  ye  know  not  how  to  interpret  this  time 
[the  spiritual  signs  of  this  age]  ?  Why  even 
of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ? " 

In  the  last  chapter  we  saw  how  Jesus  met 
the  opposition  of  the  Pharisees  to  his  healing 
on  the  Sabbath-day.  Now,  this  opposition 
sprang  not  more  out  of  their  stricter  Sab- 
batarian views  than  out  of  envy  of  his  greater 
success  in  the  exercise  of  a  power  they  them- 
selves claimed.  That  Pilate  probably  believed 
this,  one  may  infer,  especially  from  the  book 
before  mentioned,  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus. 
Therein  it  is  related  that  the  enemies  of  the 
Nazarene  admitted  that  he  cast  out  devils, 
and  that  this  called  from  the  Roman  the 
sneer,  "Why  are  not  the  devils  subject  to 
your  doctors  ? "  Their  attitude,  and  also  the 
attitude  of  some  among  the  disciples,  was  like 
that  of  certain  healers  of  the  present  day 
toward  other  healers  not  working  under  their 
name,  —  an  attitude,  surely,  not  in  the  spirit 
of  the  master.  When  complaint  was  made 
to  him  that  somebody  outside  the  fold  was 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion        I2J 

casting  out  devils  in  his  name,  he  simply 
replied,  "  Forbid  him  not ;  for  there  is  no  man 
who  shall  do  a  mighty  work  in  my  name,  and 
be  able  quickly  to  speak  evil  of  me.  He  that 
is  not  against  us  is  for  us." 

How  much  better  it  had  been  for  the  Phar- 
isees if  they  had  spoken  as  wisely  of  Jesus. 
But  no,  they  made  the  foolish  and  unfortunate 
charge,  "This  man  doth  not  cast  out  devils 
except  by  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  devils/' 
Unfortunate,  indeed;  for,  with  the  most 
nimble  wit,  the  young  preacher  forges  out 
of  their  own  logic  the  following  unerring 
boomerang : 

"Every  kingdom  divided  against  itself  is 
brought  to  desolation  ;  and  a  house  divided 
against  itself  shall  not  stand.  If  Satan  cast- 
eth  out  Satan,  he  is  divided  against  himself ; 
how  then  shall  his  kingdom  stand  ?  And  if 
by  Beelzebub  I  cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do 
your  sons  cast  them  out  ?  therefore  shall  they 
be  your  judges.  But  if  I  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  cast  out  devils,  then  is  the  kingdom  of 


128       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

God  come  upon  you.  Or  how  can  one  enter 
into  the  house  of  the  strong  man,  and  spoil 
his  goods,  except  he  first  bind  the  strong 
man  ?  and  then  he  will  spoil  his  house.  He 
that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me;  and  he 
that  gathereth  not  with  me  scattereth." 

It  was  Lincoln's  application  of  the  words 
"  A  house  divided  against  itself  shall  not 
stand  "  that  had  more  to  do  with  making  him 
President  of  these  United  States  than  any 
other  utterance  of  his  life.  They  supplanted 
Seward's  "irrepressible  conflict,"  good  as  it 
was.  Lincoln  read  his  Bible  and  Shake- 
speare, and  they  determined  his  style  beyond 
all  other  books.  It  were  well  for  oratory  and 
wit  if  more  of  our  public  men  imitated  him  in 
this  respect.  It  is  deplorable,  the  ignorance 
of  this  generation  respecting  the  Bible,  even 
as  literature. 

In  Jesus'  crushing  reply  as  given  above,  he 
does  not  stop ;  he  follows  it  up  with  a  charge 
of  blasphemy  "against  the  Holy  Spirit/'  in 
that  they  have,  through  sheer  envy,  ascribed 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion 

what  they  admit  to  be  good  works  to  the 
Devil  himself.  That  sin  "shall  not  be  for- 
given, neither  in  this  world,  nor  the  world  to 
come."  Be  consistent ;  "  either  make  the 
tree  good,  and  its  fruit  good,  or  make  the 
tree  corrupt,  and  its  fruit  corrupt ;  for  the 
tree  is  known  by  its  fruit.  Ye  offspring  of 
vipers,  how  can  ye,  being  evil,  speak  good 
things  ?  for  out  of  the  abundance  of  the 
heart  the  mouth  speaketh.  The  good  man 
out  of  his  treasure  bringeth  forth  good 
things;  and  the  evil  man  out  of  his  evil 
treasure  bringeth  forth  evil  things.  ...  By 
thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy 
words  thou  shalt  be  condemned."  * 

The  chief  priests  and  elders  were  all  the 
more  envious  of  the  growing  influence  of  the 
teacher  from  Galilee  because  he  held  no  com- 
mission from  any  divinity  school  or  ecclesias- 
tical body.  On  one  occasion,  likely  with  an 
overbearing  and  impertinent  manner,  they 
accosted  him,  "  By  what  authority  doest  thou 

*  Matt.  12,  25-37;  Luke  11,  14-24. 


fJO       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

these  things  ? "  Jesus  must  have  thought, 
"  You  assumed  depositaries  of  truth  !  what 
right  have  you  to  catechise  me  as  though  a 
prisoner  up  for  judgment  ? "  They  touch  in 
him  the  just  pride  of  self-respect,  and  spring 
the  spring  of  wit  which  catches  them  in  a 
trap: 

"  I  will  ask  of  you  one  question,  which  if 
you  answer,  I  will  tell  you  by  what  authority 
I  do  these  things :  The  baptism  of  John,  — 
whence  was  it  ?  from  heaven  or  from  men  ? 
answer  me/' 

"And  they  reasoned  with  themselves''  [so 
runs  the  account],  "If  we  shall  say,  From 
heaven,  he  will  say,  Why  then  did  ye  not 
believe  him  ?  But  if  we  say,  From  men,  we 
fear  the  multitude"  [or,  in  Luke,  "all  the 
people  will  stone  us  "] :  "  for  all  hold  John  as 
a  prophet."  The  only  refuge  left  them  was 
the  confession  of  ignorance:  "We  know 
not,"  which  in  their  case  was  especially 
humiliating.  * 

*  Matt.  21.  23-28;  Mark  u,  27-33;  Luke  20,  1-8. 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion        7J7 

It  is  a  most  commanding  aspect  of  the 
genius  of  the  Galilean  prophet  that,  in  coping 
with  captious  questioners,  he  used  his  victori- 
ous wit  so  as  to  inculcate  supreme  ethical  and 
spiritual  truth.  A  wonderful  example  of  this 
is  that  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan, 
strangely  enough  reported  only  in  Luke.  We 
can  hardly  fail  to  taste  the  flavor  of  fine 
satire  in  the  telling  form  of  the  contrast 
drawn  between  his  own  sentiment  of  universal 
brotherhood  and  the  provincial,  sectarian  sen- 
timent dominating  the  Jewish  Church  and 
State.  The  lawyer  appears  on  the  scene 
probably  not  so  much  for  earnest  truth-seek- 
ing as  to  entangle  the  teacher  and  justify  his 
own  religious  affiliation. 

Under  these  conditions  he  himself  is  made 
to  answer  the  question,  "  What  shall  I  do  to 
inherit  eternal  life  ? "  "  You  are  a  lawyer  : 
how  readest  thou  ? "  Then  follows  the  cita- 
tion from  Deuteronomy  and  Leviticus  (pos- 
sibly repeated  by  Jesus),  "Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 


132       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself ! " 

The  serene  dignity  with  which  are  pro- 
nounced the  words,  "  This  do  and  thou  shalt 
live,"  wounds  the  self-love  of  the  lawyer. 
Hoping  to  appear  to  better  advantage  before 
his  fellows,  he  pushes  his  questioning  further. 
"  Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  " 

Then,  as  if  an  inspiration,  —  like  the  gush- 
ing forth  of  a  fresh  spring  of  water,  —  comes 
the  parable :  "  A  certain  man,  a  Jew,  was 
going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho ;  and 
he  fell  among  robbers,  who  both  stripped  him 
and  beat  him,  and  departed,  leaving  him  half 
dead.  And  by  chance  a  certain  priest  was 
going  that  way ;  and  when  he  saw  him,  he 
passed  by  on  the  other  side."  [The  priest, 
on  whom  was  specially  laid  the  obligation  to 
minister  unto  the  suffering,  would  not  tarry 
even  to  save  the  life  of  a  fellow-countryman, 
if  he  happened  not  to  be  of  his  fold  in  relig- 
ion. Here,  under  cover  of  a  fictitious  individ- 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion        IJJ 

ual,  censure  is  aimed  at  a  class.  In  this  vein 
Jesus  proceeds.]  "  In  like  manner  a  Levite 
also,  when  he  came  to  the  place  and  saw  the 
wounded  man,  passed  by  on  the  other  side." 
[The  Levite  stood  next  to  the  priest,  con- 
secrated by  the  supposed  Law  of  Moses  to 
services  in  God's  temple.  And  now  follows 
the  climax  of  this  satire,  in  its  implied  con- 
demnation of  the  hard  and  exclusive  attitude 
of  the  lawyer's  sect.  Hated  and  despised  as 
the  Samaritans  were,  the  master  yet  selects 
one  of  them,  a  common  layman  at  that,  to 
embody  the  true  spirit  of  religion  —  the  spirit 
opposite  to  that  evinced  by  the  Jewish  priest 
and  the  Levite.]  "  But  a  certain  Samaritan, 
as  he  journeyed  that  way,  came  where  he  was, 
and  when  he  saw  him,  he  was  moved  with 
compassion."  [What  deeps  of  divine-human 
love  lie  in  this  favorite  phrase  of  the  Christ- 
man  !]  "  He  was  moved  with  compassion, 
and  came  to  him,  and  bound  up  his  wounds, 
pouring  on  them  oil  and  wine  ;  and  he  set  him 
on  his  beast,  and  brought  him  to  an  inn,  and 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

took  care  of  him.  And  on  the  morrow  he 
took  out  two  pence,  and  gave  them  to  the 
host,  and  said,  Take  care  of  him,  and  what- 
soever thou  spendest  more,  I  will,  when  I 
come  again,  repay  thee.  Which  of  these 
three,  thinkest  thou,  proved  neighbor  to  him 
that  fell  among  the  robbers  ? " 

The  only  answer  admissible  condemns  the 
Jewish  scribe  and  his  sect.  But  how  can  the 
lawyer  speak  the  detestable  word,  Samaritan  ? 
He  cannot.  Like  Macbeth's  "  amen,"  it  sticks 
in  his  throat.  He  is  driven,  however,  to  say 
the  equivalent  thing,  in  the  reply,  "  He  that 
shewed  mercy  on  him."  To  one  afflicted  with 
pride  and  self-righteousness  his  dismissal  had 
no  relish  in  it — "Go,  and  do  thou  like- 
wise. "  * 

In  this  connection  may  be  placed  the  so- 
called  parable  of  the  Last  Judgment,  in  the 
sense  that  it  expounds  by  humorous  contrast 
the  same  fundamental  truth  that  brotherly 
service  is  of  the  essence  of  real  religion,  and 

*  Luke  10,  25-37. 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion        135 

the  pass-key  to  the  heavenly  city.  The 
strokes  of  original  genius  lie  in  this  vivid 
picture  of  the  two  opposite  sorts  of  people 
brought  to  judgment  before  the  king  of  right- 
eousness, —  the  professing  people  and  the 
doing  people  ;  those  who  live  to  be  ministered 
unto,  and  those  who  live  to  minister.  The 
king  says  "unto  them  on  his  right  hand, 
Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the 
kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world :  for  I  was  hungry,  and  ye  gave 
me  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me 
drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in  ; 
naked,  and  ye  clothed  me;  I  was  sick,  and 
ye  visited  me ;  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came 
unto  me.  Then  shall  the  righteous  answer, 
saying,  Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  hungry,  and 
fed  thee?  or  athirst,  and  gave  thee  drink? 
And  when  saw  we  thee  a  stranger,  and  took 
thee  in  ?  or  naked,  and  clothed  thee  ?  And 
when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came 
unto  thee  ?  And  the  king  shall  answer,  and 
say  unto  them,  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  inasmuch 


fj6       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these,  my  brethren, 
even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto  me/' 

Then  follow  the  antithetical  verses,  which 
much  enhance  the  impressiveness  of  the 
thought :  Ye  on  the  left,  depart  from  me 
accursed:  "for  I  was  hungry,  and  ye  gave 
me  no  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me 
no  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
not  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  not ;  sick, 
and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not.  Then 
shall  they  also  answer,  saying,  Lord,  when 
saw  we  thee  hungry,  or  athirst,  or  a  stranger, 
or  naked,  or  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  did  not 
minister  unto  thee  ?  Then  shall  he  answer 
them,  saying,  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  inasmuch 
as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  these  least,  ye 
did  it  not  unto  me."  * 

In  admitting  this  parable  among  his  illus- 
trations, has  the  writer  hereof  furnished  oppor- 
tunity for  some  Sir-Oracle  on  Biblical  author- 
ship to  smile  the  smile  of  pity  or  contempt  ? 
"  What !  does  the  man  not  know  that  I  have 
*  Matt.  25,  33-45. 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion 

tried  and  sentenced  these  passages  to  be  not 
the  utterances  of  Jesus  any  more  forever  ? " 
Yes,  the  man  does  know  ;  and  yet  the  impres- 
sion obstinately  abides  with  him  that  it  is 
possible  Sir-Oracle,  in  this  case,  has  made  a 
mistake.  Possible  it  is  that  a  too  literal  inter- 
pretation of  this  picturesque  parable  has  caused 
not  alone  the  theological  commentators  of  the 
old  school  to  stumble,  but  some  of  the  "  higher 
critics"  of  the  new  school.  The  latter,  as 
well  as  the  former,  can  be  literalists  and  "  blind 
guides."  We  may  write  Spurious  across  the 
after-the-fact  prophecies  in  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter  of  Matthew;  and  Spurious  across 
some  portions  of  the  twenty-fifth.  We  may 
also  say  of  the  parable  in  question,  Perhaps 
it  was  somewhat  tampered  with  to  give  expres- 
sion to  a  certain  feeling  of  intolerance  man- 
ifested in  the  early  Christian  Church.  But 
the  unique  enforcement  it  makes  of  the 
Nazarene's  dominant  idea  of  salvation  by 
service,  in  the  sharp  distinction  (true  to-day 
as  ever)  which  it  draws  between  the  self- 


Ij8       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

seeking  goat-element  in  society  and  the  others- 
seeking  sheep-element  —  this  unique  contrast 
shall  have  place  here  as  the  probable,  legitimate 
child  of  Jesus'  imaginative  humor. 

To  pass  upon  this  parable  as  a  specific 
statement  of  theological  belief  is  as  irrational 
as  it  will  be  for  one  who  shall  live  a  thousand 
or  more  years  hence  to  interpret  after  the 
same  literal  fashion  certain  parables  of  the 
present  age.  Take,  for  instance,  our  current 
Saint-Peter-at-the-gate  parables,  in  which  the 
two  types  of  people,  the  professional  pietist 
and  dogmatist  and  the  unpretentious  doer  of 
practical  righteousness,  are  set  over  against 
one  another.  Both  knock  at  the  gate  of  the 
heavenly  city.  Saint  Peter  asks  for  their 
credentials,  the  result  being,  as  good  sense 
dictates,  that  the  gate  is  always  shut  against 
the  former  class,  and  opened  with  due  alacrity 
for  the  latter.  What  modern  preacher  or 
platform-speaker  soever  has  thought  of  using 
these  parables  as  belonging  to  other  than  the 
category  of  figurative  humor  ?  And  is  it  so  very 


Miracles ;   Practical  Religion 

unlikely  that  the  greatest  among  preachers 
used  in  similar  manner  this  so-called  parable 
of  the  Last  Judgment  ?  —  used  it  in  some 
sermon  on  practical  religion,  directed  against 
those  who  profess  much  and  do  little  ?  Its 
vitalizing  thought,  namely,  that  ministration 
unto  the  suffering  sons  of  men,  even  unto 
the  least  of  them,  is  ministration  to  God 
and  the  sign  and  seal  of  the  discipleship 
of  Jesus  —  this  thought  has  inspired  many 
fine  lines  from  the  poets,  both  humorous  and 
pathetic. 

Looked  at  more  from  the  view-point  of 
humor,  and  less  from  that  of  theology,  may 
not  several  of  the  parables  cast  into  the  cat- 
egory of  the  probably  spurious  be  brought  back 
into  that  of  the  probably  genuine  ?  Even  the 
parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus  may  be 
one  of  these.  Under  its  cover  we  can  think 
of  Jesus  reproaching  a  certain  class  among  the 
aristocratic  and  wealthy, — most  likely  the 
Sadducees,  who  were  conspicuous  for  their 
selfish  luxury,  their  proud  contempt  for  the 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

common  people,  and  their  general  skepti- 
cism. 

At  the  latter  temper  of  mind  is  the  conclu- 
sion aimed.  When  the  rich  man  tells  Abraham 
that  his  five  brothers  will  repent  if  only  some 
one  should  be  allowed  to  go  to  them  from  the 
dead,  the  reply  is,  "  If  they  hear  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  per- 
suaded though  one  rise  from  the  dead/' 

True  conversion  must  be  inward,  by  the 
grace  of  truth  itself,  not  outward,  by  the 
miraculous  —  by  visitation  of  ghosts,  or  other- 
wise. 

The  parable  of  the  two  men  building  their 
houses,  the  one  on  rock,  the  other  on  sand, 
furnishes,  along  with  the  sheep-and-goat  par- 
able, another  positive  distinction  between 
those  who  practise  and  those  who  do  not 
practise  the  truths  they  hear  and  pretend  to 
believe.  This  parable,  and  the  remarks  lead- 
ing up  to  it,  have  also  elements  of  serious 
humor. 

"  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord, 


Miracles ;  Practical  Religion 

Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ; 
but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which 
is  in  heaven."  The  speaker  then  describes 
the  people  of  creed  rather  than  deed,  who 
join  the  procession  after  the  kingdom  gets 
well  under  headway,  and  take  great  credit  to 
themselves  for  professing  the  faith.  "  Lord, 
Lord,  did  we  not  prophesy  by  thy  name,  and 
by  thy  name  cast  out  devils,  and  by  thy  name 
do  many  mighty  works  ?  And  then  will  I 
profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew  you :  depart 
from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity.  Every  one 
therefore  who  heareth  these  words  of  mine, 
and  doeth  them,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  wise 
man,  who  built  his  house  upon  the  rock ;  and 
the  rains  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and 
the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house; 
aud  it  fell  not,  for  it  was  founded  upon  the 
rock.  And  every  one  who  heareth  these 
words  of  mine,  and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be 
likened  unto  a  foolish  man,  who  built  his 
house  upon  the  sand ;  and  the  rain  descended, 
and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

smote  upon  that  house ;  and  it  fell :  and  great 
was  the  fall  thereof."  Whatever  the  appear- 
ances to  the  contrary,  you  are  playing  the  part 
of  this  foolish  man,  if  you  are  building  on  any 
other  basis  than  the  marriage  of  religion 
to  life. 

Some  Persian  king,  I  think  it  was,  in  these 
words  emphasized  religion  as  the  basis  of 
good  government  :  "  Every  building  which 
possesseth  not  a  sound  foundation  is  quickly 
overthrown,  and  every  house  which  possesseth 
no  keeper  is  speedily  despoiled." 


VIII 
Vanquished  Craft 


He  disappointeth  the  devices  of  the  crafty,  so  that 
their  hands  cannot  perform  their  enterprise.  He  taketh 
the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness,  and  the  counsel  of 
the  fro  ward  is  carried  headlong.  — Job. 

He  is  the  Answerer, 

What  can  be  answer  'd  he  answers,  and  what  cannot 
be  answer  'd  he  shows  how  it  cannot  be  answer 'd. 

A  man  is  a  summons  and  challenge, 

(It  is  vain  to  skulk  —  do  you  hear  that  mocking  and 
laughter  ?  do  you  hear  the  ironical  echoes  ?) 

Books,  friendships,  philosophers,  priests,  action,  pleas- 
ure, pride,  beat  up  and  down  seeking  to  give 
satisfaction, 

He  indicates  the  satisfaction,  and  indicates  them  that 
beat  up  and  down  also.  —  Walt  Whitman. 

He  that  can  answer  a  question  so  as  to  admit  of  no 
further  answer  is  the  best  man.  — Emerson. 

(M4) 


VIII 

Vanquished  Craft 


"The  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  sought  how  they 
might  take  him  by  craft." — MARK. 

"No  man  after  that  durst  ask  him  any  question." 

—  MARK. 

IT  became  more  and  more  evident  that  the 
standard  of  truth  and  life  set  up  by  Jesus 
was  irreconcilable  with  the  standard  main- 
tained by  the  more  influential  and  conserv- 
ative in  religion,  and  in  politics  also.  They 
recognized  in  the  young  Galilean  preacher  a 
personal  force  dangerous  to  their  supposed 
interests.  His  enemies  multiplied,  not  merely 
because  of  his  religious  protestation,  but 
partly  because  there  was  in  his  teachings  a 
spirit  of  protest  also  against  certain  unjust 


1^.6       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

economic  and  social  relations  existing  among 
his  countrymen. 

Completer  records,  I  doubt  not,  would 
make  this  more  apparent.  To  the  aristocratic 
and  favored  classes  he  became  no  less  obnox- 
ious than  were  Garrison,  Sumner  and  other 
brave  leaders  of  the  Abolition  movement  to 
the  American  Slavocracy  of  the  South.  To 
them  he  bore  the  front  of  a  radical  of  the 
radicals,  which  indeed  he  was  —  a  front  not 
at  all  pleasant  to  those  in  league  with  special 
privileges  and  "  organized  hypocrisy "  in 
Church  and  State.  To  paraphrase  another's 
saying,  —  Well  might  they  beware  when  God 
let  loose  this  thinker  on  the  planet.  He  was 
not  mortgaged  to  the  powerful  and  wealthy 
by  any  fear  of  losing  position  and  salary,  or 
by  any  craving  for  worldly  advancement. 
Quite  another  mission  was  his  than  deliver- 
ing dilettante  essays  on  sin  and  virtue  in  the 
abstract.  He  made  preaching  a  personal 
matter  to  the  hearer ;  he  convicted  not  only 
man  in  general,  but  some  men  in  particular, 


Vanquished  Craft 

and  not  more  a  past,  dead  generation  than  his 
own  present,  living  generation.  Right  specif- 
ically he  sometimes  said  to  the  worker  of 
iniquity,  as  the  prophet  Nathan  said  to  King 
David, — "Thou  art  the  man." 

As  the  "irrepressible  conflict "  grew  more 
irrepressible,  the  enemies  of  the  divine  Com- 
moner sought  in  more  deliberate  ways  to 
entrap  him  into  disfavor  with  the  people. 
Instances  of  the  swift  and  matchless  play  of 
his  wit  to  extricate  himself  and  turn  the  tables 
against  the  enemy  probably  occurred  which 
have  not  gotten  into  the  record.  Sadducees, 
Herodians,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  all  have 
their  unsuccessful  bouts  with  him. 

One  of  the  puzzles  which  the  materialistic, 
sneering  Sadducees  gave  him  for  solution  was 
the  hypothetical  case  of  a  widow  surviving  the 
death  of  seven  husbands,  all  of  whom  were 
brothers.  Although  themselves  not  believing 
in  the  future  life,  they  ask  Jesus  the  question, 
"In  the  resurrection,  therefore,  whose  wife 
shall  she  be  of  the  seven  ?  for  they  all  had 


1^8       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

her."  They  hoped,  I  suppose,  to  get  from 
him  an  answer  as  clumsy  as  that  made  to  this 
same  question  by  some  of  the  Pharisees  :  the 
latter  had  maintained  that  she  would  be  the 
wife  of  the  first  husband.  Not  so.  He  sim- 
ply turned  the  scripture  against  their  unbelief, 
and  taught  a  more  spiritual  conception  than 
theirs  of  love  and  the  future  life;  one  like 
unto  what  Plato  or  Emerson,  under  similar 
circumstances,  might  have  taught.  "Ye  do 
err,  not  knowing  the  scripture,  nor  the  power 
of  God.  The  sons  of  this  world  marry  and 
are  given  in  marriage;  but  they  that  are 
accounted  worthy  to  attain  to  that  world,  and 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  neither  marry 
nor  are  given  in  marriage :  for  they  are  as 
angels  in  heaven."  Then  he  asks  these 
materialists  if  they  have  not  read  in  their 
own  scripture,  "  that  which  was  spoken  unto 
you  by  God,  saying,  I  am  the  God  of 
Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the 
God  of  Jacob  ?  Now,  he  is  not  the  God  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  * 

*  Matt.  22,  27-33;  Luke  20»  27-38. 


Vanquished  Craft 

To  their  credit,  the  Pharisees  were  more 
patriotic  and  earnest  than  the  Sadducees  ;  but 
they  were  also  more  positive  and  crafty  in 
their  opposition  to  the  Galilean  reformer.  In 
order  to  put  him  in  bad  odor  either  with  the 
Romans,  or  with  his  own  countrymen,  they 
connived  (according  to  Matthew  and  Mark) 
even  with  their  hated  enemies,  the  Herodians. 
Joining  forces  with  the  latter  they  sought 
Jesus  out,  and,  with  insulting  flattery,  opened 
on  him  in  this  fashion :  "  Master,  we  know 
that  thou  art  true,  and  carest  not  for  any  one  : 
for  thou  regardest  not  the  person  of  man,  but 
of  a  truth  teachest  the  way  to  God.  Tell  us, 
therefore,  is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto 
Caesar,  or  not?  Shall  we  give  or  shall  we 
not  give  ? " 

A  most  cunningly  framed  question  this : 
for  it  demanded  an  answer  which,  if  it  should 
be  Yes,  would  deeply  offend  the  national 
prejudices  of  his  people,  and  so  destroy  the 
influence  he  had  gained  with  them  as  a 
prophet ;  and  if  it  should  be  No,  would  place 


I$O       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

him  in  great  danger  of  apprehension  by  the 
Roman  government  for  political  treason.  We 
have  it  from  Luke  that  he  was  actually  accused 
before  Pilate  of  "  forbidding  to  give  tribute  to 
Caesar."  At  any  rate,  the  previous  experience 
of  Jesus  with  this  sort  of  craftiness  had  pre- 
pared him  to  apply  to  these  oily  pretenders 
the  severe  epithet  they  fully  merited. 

Some  friend  of  Lincoln  has  recorded  that 
he  never  saw  him  look  positively  handsome 
but  once,  and  that  was  when  he  was  angry,  — 
righteously  angry.  I  fancy  a  flush  of  divine 
indignation  glorifying  the  face  of  Jesus  as  he 
exclaims,  "  Why  tempt  ye  me,  ye  hypocrites  ? 
Bring  me  the  tribute -money.  Whose  is  this 
image  and  superscription  ? " 

"  Caesar's." 

Momentarily,  perhaps,  scorn  flashes  in  his 
eye,  as  the  words  burst  forth  with  radical 
stress,  "Render,  therefore,  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's  " ;  then  rising  above 
scorn  to  a  sublime  consciousness  of  the 
debtor  relation  of  all  men  to  one  Father, 


Vanquished  Craft  151 

he  adds,  "and  unto  God  the  things  that 
are  God's." 

The  reply  must  have  struck  upon  the 
enemy's  ear  like  the  unexpected  discharge  of 
a  gun.  It  pierced  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
a  grand  triumph  of  intellectual  adroitness  and 
spiritual  insight  over  worldly  outsight  and 
cunning. 

But  of  all  the  victories  of  Jesus  over  those 
who  endeavored  to  ensnare  him,  none  are 
quite  so  dramatic  and  impressive  as  the 
victory  recorded  in  the  first  eleven  verses  of 
the  eighth  chapter  of  "John."  Touching  the 
sin  of  the  adulterous  woman,  the  Roman  law 
was  more  lenient,  and  more  in  general  favor 
with  the  Jews  themselves,  than  the  Mosaic. 
In  application  the  rabbis  had  modified  the 
rigor  of  the  latter,  and  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
were  distinctly  of  a  milder  cast.  When,  there- 
fore, the  Pharisees  and  scribes  reminded  him 
that  the  law  of  Moses  required  an  adulteress 
to  be  stoned  to  death,  and  put  the  question,  — 
"What,  then,  sayest  thou  of  her?"  —  the 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

intent  was  again  to  hedge  him  in  a  double 
dilemma.  They  hoped,  as  in  springing  the 
question  of  the  tribute-money,  that  he  would 
side  either  for  the  Mosaic  law  or  the  Roman 
law,  or  else  that  he  would  raise  an  issue 
between  the  strict  constructionists  of  the 
Mosaic  law  and  the  lax  constructionists. 
Pronouncing  for  the  strict  constructionists  he 
would  go  counter  to  rabbis  of  high  authority, 
and  to  the  inclinations  of  the  people  as  a 
whole.  Moreover,  he  would  be  charged  with 
contradicting  himself  as  the  teacher  of  a  more 
humane  doctrine.  On  the  other  hand,  pro- 
nouncing for  the  lax  constructionists,  he  would 
offend  what  may  be  called  the  Puritan  element 
among  the  Jews.  The  charge  then  would  be, 
"  Thou  hast  gone  against  scripture,  and  against 
Moses  himself."  In  case,  however,  he  avoided 
these  issues,  there  yet  remained  the  expecta- 
tion that  he  would  lay  down,  on  his  own 
authority,  a  new  rule  of  practice,  and  so  appear 
to  be  setting  himself  above  the  Roman  law, 
the  Mosaic  law,  and  the  rulings  of  the  rabbis. 


Vanquished  Craft  /5J 

Surely,  they  thought,  he  must  answer  so  as 
to  bring  himself  into  disrepute  with  some 
important  class  of  his  countrymen. 

In  such  a  complicated  dilemma  as  this,  is 
it  not  quite  supposable  that  even  the  swift 
intellect  of  Jesus  required  a  moment  or  so  to 
consider  how  to  deal  with  his  crafty  enemies  ? 
He  stooped  down,  and  drew  marks  on  the 
earth,  while  he  framed  a  reply  the  wisest, 
wittiest,  kindest  possible  to  the  situation. 

Right  marvelous  encounter  this,  between 
the  sons  of  darkness  and  the  son  of  light ! 
Around  about  stand  the  people,  wondering 
what  he  will  say.  Within  the  circle,  some- 
what nearer  the  master,  wait  his  disciples  in 
breathless  anxiety,  both  hopeful  and  fearful 
of  the  result.  In  the  center  stands  the 
woman,  frightened  and  trembling,  scarlet- 
faced  in  her  shame,  —  guilty  of  the  charge 
against  her,  no  doubt  as  to  that.  Close  upon 
Jesus,  —  eyes  involuntarily  gleaming  hatred, 
faces  advertising  exultant  expectation  of  vic- 
tory this  time,  —  close  upon  him,  in  his  sup- 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

posed  confusion,  his  adversaries  press  their 
cunning  question,  "  What  sayest  thou  ? " 

They  have  full  opportunity  to  be  secretly 
exultant.  Then  slowly  he  raises  himself, 
and,  with  all  commanding  gravity,  and  in- 
sight into  the  infirmity  of  man  in  gen- 
eral, —  perhaps  of  these  men  in  particular,  — 
he  answers,  "He  that  is  without  sin  among 
you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her" 

To  one  of  highly  sympathetic  imagination 
it  is  painful  to  see  even  an  enemy  put  to  con- 
fusion by  a  stinging  retort,  though  that  enemy 
has  justly  merited  it  by  some  malicious  ques- 
tion of  his  own.  The  sensitive,  responsive 
Jesus  feels  the  pain  of  the  questioners  him- 
self. No  resentful  exultation  detracts  from 
the  glory  of  his  victory.  Magnanimously  he 
spares  them  further  embarrassment :  stooping 
again  he  marks  on  the  ground  while  they  have 
time  to  slink  away. 

Were  they  dressed  in  ecclesiastical  robes  — 
these  self-righteous  dignitaries  ?      Then   the 
more  chagrined,  as  slowly  and  sneakingly  they 


Vanquished  Craft  755 

move  out  before  the  staring  (some  grinning) 
witnesses  to  their  defeat. 

The  accusers  themselves  convicted  by  an 
answer  implying  a  truth  universal  and  immor- 
tal, how  now  shall  he  deal  with  the  accused  ? 
Shall  he  mete  out  harsh  censure  to  this  guilty, 
trembling  woman  ?  or  shall  he  excuse  her 
crime  ?  Verily,  neither.  Magnanimous  again, 
Jesus  condemns  not ;  but  with  a  bearing 
toward  her  in  tone  of  voice,  in  words  full  of 
sad  and  gracious  rebuke,  the  most  effectual  to 
insure  reform,  he  gravely  charges  her,  "Go 
thy  way:  from  henceforth  sin  no  more." 

It  is  no  special  wonder  that,  to  the  ascetic 
temper  prevailing  at  one  time  in  the  Christian 
communities,  this  anecdote  cast  reflection  on 
the  master  of  religion  and  morals.  It  seemed 
to  encourage  a  view  too  lax  respecting  a  sin 
which,  in  the  Eastern  Church  at  least,  made 
a  member  who  was  guilty  of  it  amenable  to 
severe  discipline.  Hence,  it  is  thought,  the 
story  was  excluded  by  the  authors  of  the 
earlier,  or  synoptic,  gospels.  Hence,  also,  it 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

may  be,  its  rejection  by  a  considerable  number 
of  Biblical  scholars.  Whether  originally 
included  even  in  the  book  of  "John  "  or  not, 
I  unhesitatingly  accept  it  as  an  actual  fact  in 
the  life  of  the  same  capacious  and  compas- 
sionate soul  who  said  in  the  house  of  Simon 
to  the  repentant  Magdalen  at  his  feet :  "  Thy 
sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven  thee." 
Subjectively  considered,  no  account  of  the 
Nazarene's  trials  of  wit  bears  any  more  gen- 
uine stamp  than  this  story  of  the  adulterous 
woman.  Sublime  demonstration  of  his  ele- 
vated mind  and  character,  to  me  it  is  true  to 
the  core  of  it.  You  son  of  "  sweetness  and 
light,"  what  power  was  yours  of  invincible  wit 
to  baffle  the  wiles  of  wily  men !  How  fit- 
tingly, on  occasions  many,  might  you  have 
flung  at  the  enemy  these  lines  of  a  Greek 
tragedy : 

"  O  shameless  one  all  daring,  weaving  still 
Some  crafty  scheme  from  every  righteous  word, 
Why  triest  thou  again  ?  " 


IX 

Hypocrisy  and  Self-Righteousness 


Jesus  addresses  himself  always  to  the  delicacy  of  the 
moral  sentiment.  .  .  .  His  exquisite  irony,  his  arch 
provocations,  always  struck  to  the  heart.  Eternal 
darts,  they  remain  fixed  in  the  wound.  The  Nessus- 
shirt  of  ridicule  was  woven  by  Jesus  with  divine  art. 
Masterpieces  of  lofty  raillery,  his  traits  are  written  in 
lines  of  fire  upon  the  flesh  of  the  hypocrite  and  the 
pretended  devotee.  Incomparable  traits,  traits  worthy 
of  a  Son  of  God  !  Thus,  a  God  alone  can  kill. 
Socrates  and  Moliere  but  graze  the  skin.  He  carries 
fire  and  madness  into  the  marrow  of  the  bones. 

—  Renan. 

Hypocrisy,  the  only  evil  that  walks 
Invisible,  except  to  God  alone, 
By  his  permissive  will,  through  heav'n  and  earth. 

— Milton. 

Two  went  to  pray  ?     Oh  !  rather  say, 
One  went  to  brag,  the  other  to  pray. 

One  stands  up  close,  and  treads  on  high, 
Where  the  other  dares  not  lend  his  eye. 

One  nearer  to  God's  altar  trod  ; 
The  other  to  the  altar's  God. 

— Richard  Crash  aw. 
(158) 


IX 

Hypocrisy  and  Self-Righteousness 
^ 

"/  know  not  seems."  —  HAMLET. 

"As  the  religious  sentiment  is  the  most  real  and 
earnest  thing  in  nature,  .  ,  .  the  vitiating  this 
is  the  greatest  lie.  Therefore,  the  oldest  gibe  in 
literature  is  the  ridicule  of  false  religion" 

—  EMERSON. 


T^HE  wise  teachers  of  the  race  have  ever 
*  extolled  sincerity  as  a  central  jewel  in  the 
crown  of  virtue.  It  so  lies  at  the  root  of  true 
manhood  and  the  power  of  ministration  unto 
men  that  Confucius  declared  it  to  be  "the 
beginning  and  end  of  things."  "The  way 
of  heaven  and  earth  is  without  any  double- 
ness." 

Sincerity  being  held  in  such  high  esteem, 


l6o       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

no  other  type  of  sinner  has  been  more  satirized 
and  ridiculed  than  the  hypocrite.  Of  his 
special  vice,  Montaigne,  frankest  of  skeptics, 
has  remarked,  "  I  find  none  that  does  evidence 
so  much  of  baseness  and  meanness  of  spirit." 
So  mean  that  Hugo  has  said,  "  Its  odiousness 
is  obscurely  felt  by  the  hypocrite  himself." 
"  The  elements  of  his  body  will  laugh  within 
him/'  declares  an  ancient  Hindu.  How  mer- 
cilessly Rabelais,  Voltaire  and  Hugo,  Carlyle, 
Thackeray  and  Dickens  have  painted  him  as 
an  object  of  reprobation  !  What  a  searching 
dissection  is  the  painting  of  the  character  of 
Judge  Pyncheon,  in  the  "  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables";  of  Captain  Clubin,  in  the  "Toilers 
of  the  Sea";  still  better,  of  the  oily  Peck- 
sniff, in  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit  "  !  A  right  true 
friend  of  the  sincerities  is  the  ironical  picture 
of  this  Pecksniff  riding  on  a  cold  day,  with  his 
warm  wraps  about  him,  thanking  God  that  he 
was  better  off  than  other  men.  "A  very 
beautiful  arrangement,  to  feel  in  keen  weather 
that  many  other  people  are  not  as  warm  as 


Hypocrisy  and  Self -Righteousness       161 

you  are.  For  if  every  one  were  warm  and 
well  fed,  we  should  lose  the  satisfaction  of 
admiring  the  fortitude  with  which  certain  con- 
ditions of  men  bear  cold  and  hunger.  And 
if  we  were  no  better  off  than  anybody  else, 
what  would  become  of  our  sense  of  gratitude  ? 
which,  says  Mr.  Pecksniff,  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  as  he  shook  his  fist  at  a  beggar  who 
wanted  to  get  up  behind,  is  one  of  the  holiest 
feelings  of  our  common  nature." 

"  Hypocritical  piety  is  double  iniquity,"  as 
the  proverb  says.  It  dupes  the  multitude, 
and  masks  a  moral  leprosy  contaminating  the 
individual's  whole  nature.  Therefore  the  gen- 
erous lovers  of  men  do  generously  hate  cant 
and  hypocrisy.  Jesus  hated  them  also.  No 
other  form  of  vice  aroused  in  him  such  aver- 
sion. The  detection  of  its  existence  among 
the  more  influential  classes  drew  from  his 
intellectual  quiver  his  sharpest  arrows. 

The  hypocrite  not  unfrequently  pretends  to 
the  greater  virtue  by  his  severer  censure  of 
the  frailties  of  others.  Against  such  Jesus 


162       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

warned  his  disciples,  saying,  "Judge  not,  lest 
ye  be  judged.  For  with  what  judgment  ye 
judge  ye  shall  be  judged ;  and  with  what 
measure  ye  mete  it  shall  be  measured  unto 
you.  And  why  beholdest  thou  the  mote  that 
is  in  thy  brother's  eye,  and  considerest  not 
the  beam  that  is  in  thine  own  eye  ?  Or  how 
wilt  thou  say  to  thy  brother,  Let  me  cast  the 
mote  out  of  thine  eye ;  and  lo,  the  beam  is  in 
thine  own  eye  ?  Thou  hypocrite !  first  cast 
the  beam  out  of  thine  own  eye;  and  then 
shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  cast  the  mote  out  of 
thy  brother's  eye." 

Now  comes  a  shaft  for  spectacular  piety 
and  charity.  "Take  heed  that  ye  do  not 
your  righteousness  before  men,  to  be  seen  of 
them;  else  you  have  no  reward  of  your 
Father.  When,  therefore,  thou  doest  alms, 
sound  not  a  trumpet  before  thee,  as  the 
hypocrites  do  in  the  synagogue  and  in  the 
street,  that  they  may  have  glory  of  men. 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  they  have  received 
their  reward.  But  when  thou  doest  alms,  let 


Hypocrisy  and  Self-Righteousness       l6j 

not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand 
doeth."  * 

Let  us  rejoice  at  the  progress  of  the  latter 
days.  We  have  finer  agencies  now  than 
synagogue  and  street  for  publishing  our  char- 
ities. We  have  only  to  whisper  them  to  the 
reporter,  and  the  newspaper  takes  them  into 
every  home.  So  solemnly  we  read  on  Sun- 
day, "  Let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy 
right  hand  doeth " ;  so  eagerly  we  print  on 
Monday  what  both  hands  do  ! 

"Moreover,"  continues  Jesus,  "when  ye 
fast,  be  not  as  the  hypocrites,  of  a  sad  coun- 
tenance ;  for  they  disfigure  their  faces  [assume 
a  dismal  expression],  that  they  may  be  seen 
of  men  to  fast."  .  .  .  "And  when  ye  pray  [or 
worship],  ye  shall  not  be  as  the  hypocrites ; 
for  they  love  to  stand  and  pray  in  the  syn- 
agogues, and  in  the  corners  of  the  street,  that 
they  may  be  seen  of  men.  But  thou,  when 
thou  prayest,  enter  into  thine  inner  chamber, 
and,  having  shut  the  door,  pray  to  thy  Father 
*  Matt.  7,  1-5  ;  Luke  6,  37-42. 


164       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

who  is  in  secret,  and  thy  Father  who  seeth 
in  secret  shall  recompense  thee."  There  is 
satire  in  the  repetition  of  the  phrases,  "to 
be  seen  of  men,"  and  "verily,  they  have  their 
reward/'  Observe,  too,  his  censure  of  long 
and  detailed  prayers :  "  In  praying,  use  not 
vain  repetitions,  as  the  heathen  do ;  for  they 
think  they  shall  be  heard  for  their  much  speak- 
ing. Be  not,  therefore,  like  unto  them ;  for 
your  Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have 
need  of,  before  ye  ask  him."  * 

Alas,  in  this  matter  of  prayer  the  heathen, 
more  than  Jesus,  find  imitation  yet  in  many 
Christian  pulpits.  The  petitions  sent  up  come 
nigh  unto  blasphemy,  so  much  do  they  imply 
that  God  does  not  know  that  he  knows  —  that 
he  needs  instruction  and  reminding  in  the 
mysterious  business  of  governing  the  uni- 
verse. 

Commenting  on  the  foregoing  utterances  of 
Jesus,  a  great  Biblical  critic  exclaims  :  "  With 
what  a  masterly  hand  he  throws  off  in  a  few 
*  Matt.  6, 1-18. 


Hypocrisy  and  Self -Righteousness       165 

rapid  touches  these  brief  but  living  portrait- 
ures !  A  holy  satire  on  every  school  or  fashion 
that  makes  religion  a  coat  to  put  on,  a  part  to 
study,  a  thing  of  outward  show.  Can  we  not 
see  that  friend  of  the  poor  who  is  so  proud  of 
his  charitable  disposition,  but  prouder  still  of 
his  reputation  for  it  ?  Can  we  not  see  the 
punctual  devotee  who  goes  to  the  synagogue 
every  day  to  say  his  prayers,  but  is  not  dis- 
pleased should  the  hour  sometimes  overtake  him 
in  the  street,  especially  at  a  much-frequented 
spot  ?  —  then  he  stops  short  and  offers  up 
his  long  petition  where  he  stands,  while  the 
passers-by  turn  aside  in  reverence  and  lower 
their  voices  to  a  whisper !  Can  we  not  see 
that  saintly  ascetic,  with  his  head  bowed  down 
and  strewed  with  ashes,  with  his  unkempt  hair 
and  beard  and  his  penitential  garb  ?  The 
people  point  to  him  in  wonder,  and  say,  Fast- 
ing again !  What  a  man  he  is !  He  never 
spares  himself ! " 

"A  man  may  smile  and  smile  and  be  a 
villain/'    Jesus  was  forced  to  see  how  possible 


1 66       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

this  was  to  some  of  the  men  with  whom  he 
had  to  deal;  and  he  denounced  them  as 
"whited  sepulchers,  outwardly  beautiful,  but 
inwardly  full  of  dead  men's  bones."  "  Be- 
ware of  the  scribes,  who  like  to  walk  about 
in  long  robes,  and  love  salutations  in  the 
markets,  and  the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues, 
and  the  first  places  at  feasts;  who  devour 
widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretense  make 
long  prayers.  These  will  receive  the  greater 
damnation." 

"  With  devotion's  visage 
And  pious  action  we  do  sugar  o'er 
The  devil  himself." 

Jesus  always  goes  from  the  outward  action 
to  the  inward  motive,  from  seeming  to  being. 
With  Hamlet  he  could  say,  "I  know  not 
seems." 

The  scene  of  the  widow's  mite,  both  in 
Mark  and  Luke,  happily  follows  the  denun- 
ciation of  the  devourers  of  "widows'  houses." 
When  he  saw  the  rich  casting  into  the  church- 


Hypocrisy  and  Self -Righteousness       167 

treasury,  more  or  less  ostentatiously,  he  de- 
clared that  the  poor  woman,  giving  her  two 
mites,  had  "  cast  in  more  than  they  all ;  for 
they  did  of  their  superfluity  cast  in  unto  the 
gifts ;  but  she  of  her  want  did  cast  in  all  the 
living  that  she  had."  As  Jesus  watched  the 
givers,  he  now  and  then  beheld  one  belonging 
to  the  class  described  by  an  English  poet : 

"  With  one  hand  he  put 
A  penny  in  the  urn  of  poverty, 
And  with  the  other  took  a  shilling  out." 

Listen  again :  "  Beware  of  false  prophets, 
who  come  in  sheep's  clothing,  but  inwardly 
are  ravening  wolves.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them.  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns, 
or  figs  of  thistles  ?  Even  so  every  good  tree 
bringeth  forth  good  fruit :  but  the  corrupt  tree 
bringeth  forth  evil  fruit."  The  Romans  had 
the  proverb  :  "  The  wolf  changes  his  coat,  but 
not  his  disposition." 

In  Luke  18,  9-14,  we  have  the  climax  of 
the  Galilean's  incisive  satire  on  professional 


1 68       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

piety,  sectarian  pride,  and  self-righteousness : 
it  comes  in  the  parable  of  the  Publican  and 
the  Pharisee.  He  was  inculcating  the  sweet 
virtue  of  humility,  when  he  turned  the  hearers' 
"  ears  into  eyes  "  with  this  bold  and  graphic 
portraiture  of  what  Carlyle,  in  subtle  paradox, 
calls  "  the  sincere  hypocrite  "  : 

"  Two  men  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray, 
the  one  a  Pharisee,  the  other  a  publican.  The 
Pharisee  stood,  and  prayed  thus  within  him- 
self :  God,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other 
men,  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers,  or  even 
as  this  publican.  I  fast  twice  in  the  week ;  I 
give  tithes  of  all  I  get."  Now,  how  sharp  and 
vivid  the  antithesis  !  "  But  the  publican,  stand- 
ing afar  off,  would  not  so  much  as  lift  up  his 
eyes  to  heaven,  but  smote  his  breast,  saying, 
God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner.  I  say  unto 
you,  this  man  went  down  to  his  house  justified, 
rather  than  the  other;  for  every  one  that 
exalt eth  himself  shall  be  humbled,  but  he  that 
humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted." 

The  concluding  words,  as  we  have  already 


Hypocrisy  and  Self-Righteousness       l6g 

seen,  are  reported  to  have  been  given  also  on 
a  different  occasion.  They  are  fitting  and 
effective  in  both  connections.  Who  can  tell 
what  gestures,  what  play  of  the  features, 
what  glancings  of  the  eye,  what  intonations 
of  voice  may  have  enhanced  the  ridicule  in 
this  incomparable  picture  of  the  two  opposite 
and  generic  types  of  character  therein  set 
forth ! 


X 

Closing  of  the  Conflict 


Christ,  therefore,  concentrates  all  his  wrath  upon 
the  self-righteous  Pharisee,  the  unfaithful  leader  of  the 
unfaithful,  who  would  neither  enter  heaven  himself, 
nor  allow  others  to  enter.  ...  He  could  bear  any 
amount  of  unholiness,  because  he  knew  faith  could 
cure  that.  But  he  could  not  bear  the  absence  of  faith, 
because  what  could  be  the  cure  of  that  ?  .  .  .  The 
gentleness  and  sympathy  of  Jesus  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  weakness,  timidity,  and  toleration  of 
evil.  He  had  gentle  pity  and  forgiveness  for  the  vic- 
tims of  mistake  and  passion,  but  the  deliberate  slaves 
of  falsehood,  faithlessness,  and  religious  vanity  are  only 
fit  for  the  fire  and  brimstone  which  Jesus  hurled  at 
them.  — Mozoomdar 

So  let  it  be.      In  God's  own  might 

We  gird  us  for  the  coming  fight, 

And  strong  in  Him  whose  cause  is  ours 

In  conflict  with  unholy  powers, 

We  grasp  the  weapons  He  has  given,  — 

The  Light,  and  Truth,  and  Love  of  Heaven. 

—  Wbittier. 
(172) 


X 

Closing  of  the  Conflict 

-•> 
"Woe  unto  you!" 

"And  they  cast  him  out  of  the  vineyard,  and  killed 

him." 
"Fill ye  up,  then,  the  measure  of  your  fathers." 

— JESUS. 

THE  discovery  that  he  has  overrated  the 
capacity  or  disposition  of  men  to  be  raised 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane  of  life  —  does 
this  not  make  one  of  the  saddest  crosses  of 
the  teacher  of  the  things  of  the  spirit  ?  Did 
it  not  make  one  of  the  saddest  crosses  of  the 
Nazarene  who  was  to  be  crucified  ?  "  Surely," 
one  might  fancy  him  communing  with  himself, 
"a  message  so  sweet  and  reasonable  ought 
to  go  at  once  to  the  mind  and  heart  of  man. 
But  lo,  how  many  find  it  neither  sweet  nor 
reasonable ! " 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

As  the  rejection  of  his  Messiahship  by  his 
own  countrymen  in  general,  and  the  ruling 
classes  in  particular,  was  made  more  and  more 
evident,  the  idea  waxed  strong  upon  him 
of  substituting  in  their  place  the  so-called 
heathen,  who  showed  comparatively  such  grat- 
ifying readiness  to  accept  him.  In  presenting 
this  idea  he  came  to  indulge  more  freely  in 
the  parable  of  figurative  satire.  A  fine  ex- 
ample is  that  of  the  Supper  and  Invited 
Guests  ;  though  this  parable  may  be  regarded 
more  genial  in  the  humor  of  it  than  the  other 
parables  of  the  same  class.  As  appears  from 
Luke,  it  was  probably  delivered  before  the 
fatal  visit  to  Jerusalem.  It  is  given  quite 
differently,  in  this  book,  from  the  form  in 
Matthew,  and  is  much  the  preferable: 

"  A  certain  man  made  a  great  supper ;  and 
invited  a  large  number  of  guests.  And  when 
the  time  came  he  sent  forth  his  servant  to  say 
to  them  who  were  bidden,  Come,  for  all  things 
are  now  ready.  But  they  all  with  one  consent 
began  to  make  excuse.  One  said,  I  have  just 


Closing  of  the  Conflict 

bought  a  field,  and  I  must  go  to  look  at  it : 
I  pray  thee  have  me  excused.  Another  said, 
I  have  just  bought  five  yoke  of  oxen,  and  I 
want  to  try  them :  I  pray  thee  have  me  ex- 
cused. A  third  said,  I  have  married  a  wife ; 
of  course  I  cannot  come."  Fancy  here  one 
of  those  gracious  smiles  which  used  to  enhance 
the  fine  humor  in  Emerson's  public  lectures. 
Perhaps  the  speaker  recalled  the  passage  in 
Deuteronomy  24,  5  :  "  When  a  man  hath 
taken  a  new  wife,  he  shall  not  go  out  to  war, 
neither  shall  he  be  charged  with  any  business  : 
but  he  shall  be  free  at  home  one  year,  and 
shall  cheer  up  his  wife  whom  he  hath  taken." 

Without  enumerating  any  further  excuses, 
the  parable  goes  on  to  relate  with  what  indig- 
nation the  host  receives  them.  The  invita- 
tion to  the  Messianic  kingdom  being  refused 
by  "  respectable  "  and  prosperous  Jews,  own- 
ing farms,  stock,  and  the  like,  salvation  is 
proffered  to  the  outcasts  and  the  Gentiles. 
"  Then  the  master  of  the  house,  being  angry, 
said  to  his  servant,  Go  out  quickly  into  the 


7/6        The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

streets  and  lanes  of  the  city,  and  bring  in  the 
poor  and  maimed  and  blind  and  lame.  And 
the  servant  said,  Lord,  what  thou  didst  com- 
mand is  done,  and  yet  there  is  room.  And 
the  lord  said  unto  the  servant,  Go  out  [of  the 
city]  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  and  con- 
strain them  to  come  in,  that  my  house  may  be 
filled.  For  I  say  unto  you,  that  none  of 
those  men  which  were  bidden  shall  taste  of  my 
supper. " 

Before  entering  on  his  evangelism  at 
Jerusalem,  Jesus  had  witnessed  much  to 
weaken  his  earlier  faith  in  the  spiritual 
capacity  and  willingness  of  his  countrymen; 
and  all  too  much  had  he  been  subjected  to 
irritating  and  crafty  antagonisms.  "  He  came 
unto  his  own,  and  they  that  were  his  own 
received  him  not."  This  was  the  thorn  that 
rankled,  and  that  provoked  from  him  cer- 
tain anathemas  recorded  in  different  parts 
of  the  gospel  accounts,  —  as  similar  treat- 
ment had  provoked  their  "  Woe  unto  you  " 
from  other  prophets  before  him.  The  blood 


Closing  of  the  Conflict 

of  Israel's  Great  Rejected  Ones  flowed  in 
his  veins  —  the  blood  of  those  not  given  to 
hyper-refined  toleration.  In  no  other  race 
than  the  Hebrew  has  the  prophet  been  driven 
by  such  concentration  of  vision,  such  intensity 
of  moral  and  religious  passion.  In  the  litera- 
ture of  this  age,  who  answers  to  his  type, 
unless  it  be  Thomas  Carlyle  ?  Jesus  only 
obeyed  the  law  of  the  Jewish  temperament 
when,  to  him,  his  rejection  by  his  own  country- 
men made  them  seem  worse  than  the  heathen 
Ninevites ;  since  the  latter  were  open  to  con- 
version by  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  as  many 
of  the  Gentiles  were  open  to  conversion  by 
the  preaching  of  a  far  "  greater  than  Jonah." 
"Even,"  he  says,  "as  Jonah  became  a  sign" 
[a  teacher  of  truth  and  righteousness]  "  unto 
the  Ninevites,  so  also  shall  the  Son  of  man  be 
unto  this  generation."  Therefore  "the  men 
of  Nineveh  shall  stand  up  in  the  judgment 
with  this  generation,  and  shall  condemn  it : 
for  they  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonah ; 
and  behold,  a  greater  than  Jonah  is  here.  The 


//<?       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

queen  of  the  south  shall  rise  up  in  the  judg- 
ment with  this  generation,  and  shall  condemn 
it ;  for  she  came  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solomon ;  and  behold, 
a  greater  than  Solomon  is  here/' 

Let  not  the  passage  which  immediately  fol- 
lows in  Matthew  be  passed  unnoticed,  though 
the  meaning  be  not  readily  apprehended.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  keen  and  original  of  Jesus* 
thrusts  at  the  Jewish  hierarchy  and  its  blind 
devotees.  He  seems  to  speak  here  with  the 
feeling  that  certain  of  the  preceding  prophets, 
in  some  measure,  had  purged  the  temple  of 
the  State  religion  from  "  the  unclean  spirit  " 
of  spiritual  deadness  and  unbelief ;  and  with 
the  feeling  also  that  he  himself  at  first  had 
been  received  with  favor.  But  the  conviction 
grew  strong  that  there  was  a  fatal  relapse  into 
soulless  formality  and  willful  hostility  toward 
a  gospel  of  truth,  righteousness  and  love. 
"The  unclean  spirit/'  he  says,  "when  he  is 
gone  out  of  the  man,  passeth  through  water- 
less places,  seeking  rest  and  finding  it  not. 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  7/p 

Then  he  saith,  I  will  return  into  mine  house 
whence  I  came  out ;  and  when  he  is  come,  he 
findeth  it  empty,  swept  and  garnished  [spirit- 
ual life  departed].  Then  goeth  he,  and  taketh 
with  himself  seven  other  spirits  more  evil  than 
himself,  and  they  enter  in  and  dwell  there ; 
and  the  last  state  of  that  man  becometh  worse 
than  the  first.  Even  so  shall  it  be  unto  this 
evil  generation."  * 

When  society  reaches  the  extreme  of  hard- 
ened unbelief  and  immorality,  then  the  founder 
of  a  new  dispensation  in  government  or  relig- 
ion is  at  hand.  As  before  intimated,  Jesus 
had  had  revealed  to  him  in  the  smaller  cities 
enough  of  hypocrisy,  craft  and  resisting  sen- 
sualism to  work  in  him  moral  resentment.  But 
it  was  within  the  walls  of  the  sacred  city  of 
Jewdom  that  this  resentment  attained  its  cul- 
minating passion.  At  metropolitan  centers 
social  diseases  appear  in  the  most  shocking 
and  incurable  form.  There  it  is  that  the 
prophet  meets  with  the  most  hopelessly  wise 
*  Matt.  12,  40-45;  Luke  n,  29-32. 


l8o        The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

and  dogmatic  skepticism,  the  most  withering 
and  sneering  cynicism,  among  the  educated 
classes ;  the  most  debasing  luxury  and  display 
of  pride  and  vanity,  on  the  part  of  the  power- 
ful and  wealthy ;  the  most  offensive  observance 
of  caste,  and  the  widest  chasm  between  the 
top  and  bottom  of  the  social  fabric.  So  was 
it  at  Florence,  when  the  people's  sins  made 
Savonarola,  as  he  said,  a  prophet  —  a  prophet 
whose  Hebraic  rebukes  kindled  the  enmity 
which  wove  for  him  the  martyr's  shroud  of 
fire.  So  was  it  at  Geneva,  when  the  austere 
Calvin  applied  a  surgeon's  knife  to  the  vices 
of  that  city,  and  transformed  it  into  a  habita- 
tion of  virtue.  And  so  was  it  at  the  home  of 
the  Popes,  when  valiant  Luther  was  staggered 
and  incensed  by  the  flagrant  corruption  and 
unbelief  of  the  ecclesiastical  keepers  of  relig- 
ion. "There  is  a  saying  in  Italy,"  he  says, 
"which  they  make  use  of  when  they  go  to 
church :  '  Come  and  let  us  conform  to  the 
popular  error.' " 

Much  the  same  hardness  of  heart,  immoral- 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  l8l 

ity  and  hypocrisy  opened  themselves  up  to 
Jesus  at  Jerusalem  as  opened  themselves  up  to 
the  German  monk  at  Rome.  According  to  a 
Jewish  proverb,  nine  out  of  ten  hypocrites  of 
the  world  were  to  be  found  in  the  metropolis 
of  "  God's  chosen  people."  Here  the  mech- 
anism of  worship  was  most  mechanical,  the 
sterility  of  spirit  most  sterile,  the  hardness  of 
heart  most  hardened.  Here  his  high  instincts 
received  their  severest  shock  ;  here  enemies 
laid  pitfalls  for  him  and  nagged  him  at  every 
turn.  Here  was  he  pricked  to  the  utterance 
of  those  most  caustic  parables  and  denuncia- 
tions which  precipitated  the  final  catastrophe. 
Here,  or  nowhere,  a  noble  and  just  indigna- 
tion called  for  the  most  crushing  weapons  of 
satire  and  invective  producible  in  the  armory 
of  his  inventive  genius.  There  was  more 
hope  of  the  Gentile  and  of  the  lower  classes 
than  of  the  aristocratic,  cynical  Sadducee  and 
the  canting,  self-righteous  Pharisee. 

"What  think  ye  ?  "  he  says  to  them.     "A 
man  had  two  sons ;  and  he  came  to  the  first, 


1 82       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

and  said,  Son,  go  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard. 
And  he  answered  and  said,  I  will  not;  but 
afterwards  repented  himself  and  went.  And 
he  came  to  the  second,  and  said  likewise. 
And  he  answered  and  said,  I  go,  sir ;  and 
went  not.  Which  of  the  twain  did  the  will 
of  his  father?"  Being  answered,  "the  first," 
the  conclusion  follows :  "  Verily,  then,  the 
publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom 
before  you.  For  John  came  unto  you  in  the 
way  of  righteousness,  and  ye  believed  him 
not;  but  the  publicans  and  harlots  believed 
him;  and  ye  when  ye  saw  it  did  not  even 
repent  yourselves  that  ye  might  believe 
him." 

As  in  line  with  the  preceding  utterances, 
Matthew  follows  with  the  vigorous  and  graphic 
parable  of  the  Husbandmen  and  the  Vineyard, 
which  is  given  substantially  alike  by  all  three 
evangelists : 

"  There  was  a  man  that  was  a  householder, 
which  planted  a  vineyard,  and  set  a  hedge 
about  it,  and  digged  a  wine-press  in  it,  and 


Closing  of  the  Conflict 

built  a  tower,  and  let  it  out  to  husbandmen, 
and  went  into  another  country.  And  when 
the  harvest  drew  near,  he  sent  a  servant  to 
the  husbandmen  to  receive  his  fruits.  But 
they  took  him,  and  beat  him,  and  sent  him 
away  empty.  And  he  sent  another  servant, 
and  him  also  they  shamefully  maltreated  and 
turned  away  empty.  And  still  he  sent  a 
third,  and  him  also  they  wounded  and  cast 
forth.  Likewise  did  they  unto  other  servants, 
beating  one,  stoning  another,  and  killing 
another.  Finally  the  lord  of  the  vineyard 
said,  "  What  shall  I  do  ?  I  will  send  my  son  : 
it  may  be  they  will  reverence  him.  But  the 
husbandmen,  when  they  saw  the  son,  said 
among  themselves,  This  is  the  heir  !  come,  let 
us  kill  him,  and  have  the  inheritance  ourselves. 
And  they  cast  him  out  of  the  vineyard,  and 
killed  him." 

Pausing  here,  for  his  words  to  take  effect, 
the  speaker  continues,  "  What,  therefore,  will 
the  lord  of  the  vineyard  do  unto  them  ?  He 
will  miserably  destroy  those  miserable  men, 


iS-f.       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

and  let  out  the  vineyard  unto  other  husband- 
men, who  shall  render  him  the  fruits  in  their 
season."  Then  Jesus  springs  the  happy  quo- 
tation from  Psalms  18,  22-23,  as  relevant  to 
his  own  Messiahship : 

f(  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected, 
The  same  was  made  the  head  of  the  corner  : 
This  was  from  the  Lord, 
And  it  was  marvelous  in  our  eyes."  * 

This  parable,  the  record  tells  us,  so  incensed 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  that,  had  they  not 
feared  the  multitude,  who  took  Jesus  for  a 
prophet,  they  would  have  seized  him  then  and 
there.  None  the  less  determined,  however, 
was  their  purpose  to  compass  the  death  of 
this  most  invincible  of  all  the  sons  of  God 
sent  to  gather  His  fruits  in  Israel. 

Conscious  of  this,  Jesus  yet  turns  not  back ; 
rather  does  he  press  forward  toward  the  final . 
tragedy  by  still  more  bold  and  resolute  censure 
of  them  and  their  ways.    Each  day  at  Jerusalem 

*  Matt.  21,  33-46;  Mark  12,  1-12;  Luke  20,  9-18. 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  185 

strengthens  his  conviction  of  the  hollowness 
of  the  established  Church,  and  of  the  selfish- 
ness and  cant  of  its  chief  defenders.  To  cite 
again  the  example  of  Luther,  as  the  latter's 
moral  sense  and  fellow-feeling  were  outraged 
at  the  spectacle  of  priests  filching  from  the 
scanty  substance  of  the  common  people  by 
the  sale  of  the  Papal  indulgences,  so  the  pain 
of  the  compassionate  Jesus,  in  witnessing  the 
deceptions  practised  on  his  countrymen  and 
the  oppressions  of  the  poor  by  the  rich,  burns 
deeper  and  deeper,  kindling  at  the  core  of  him 
a  flame  of  wrath  divine. 

On  one  of  the  last  days  of  the  conflict,  not 
unlikely  the  last,  he  appears  in  the  court  of 
that  great  temple  which  was  the  pride  of  the 
Jew  to  the  remotest  outskirts  of  Roman 
supremacy.  The  iniquity  of  "  organized 
hypocrisy "  assumes  for  him  more  colossal 
proportions  than  ever.  More  than  ever  is 
his  heart  big  with  the  grievances  of  the  weak 
against  the  strong.  Religion  itself  seems 
harnessed  to  the  chariot  of  commercial  lust. 


1 86       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

In  the  righteous  heat  of  the  moment  he  would 
fain,  by  physical  prowess,  drive  from  the 
sacred  precincts  the  money-changers.  "  It  is 
written,  My  house  shall  be  called  a  house  of 
prayer;  but  ye  make  it  a  den  of  robbers." 

Under  the  stress  of  these  influences  we 
may  well  imagine  him  spurred  to  attack 
hypocrisy  and  social  injustice  with  unusual 
vehemence.  No  time  this  for  moral  essays 
of  "glittering  generalities,"  which  convict 
nobody;  no  time  for  persuasive  utterances 
that  persuade  not.  Time  rather  for  specific 
woes  against  the  offenders  of  a  just  God. 
The  vast  heart  of  the  Son  of  man  quivers 
with  the  wrongs  of  the  people  as  his  wrongs. 
He  becomes  the  real  orator,  fashioned  by 
occasion ;  the  quiver  extends  into  an  awful 
impressiveness  of  voice,  gesture  and  facial 
expression,  as  the  pent-up  "anger  of  love" 
for  his  weaker  fellows  discharges  itself  in  the 
fire-speech  of  this  invective  : 

"  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees ! 
for  ye  lade  men  with  burdens  grievous  to  be 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  187 

borne,  and  ye  yourselves  move  not  the  burdens 
with  one  of  your  fingers.  All  your  works  you 
do  to  be  seen  of  men ;  for  you  make  broad 
your  phylacteries,  and  enlarge  the  borders  of 
your  garments,  and  love  the  chief  place  at 
feasts,  and  the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues, 
and  the  salutations  in  the  market-places,  and 
to  be  called  of  men,  Rabbi. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites  !  because  ye  shut  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  against  men,  and  have  taken  away  the 
key  of  knowledge ;  for  ye  enter  not  in  your- 
selves, neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  enter- 
ing in  to  enter. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites !  for  ye  compass  sea  and  land  to 
make  one  proselyte ;  and  when  he  is  become 
so,  ye  make  him  two-fold  more  a  son  of  hell 
than  yourselves. 

"  Woe  unto  you,  ye  blind  guides  !  who  say, 
Whosoever  shall  swear  by  the  temple,  it  is 
nothing,  but  whosoever  shall  swear  by  the 
gold  of  the  temple,  it  is  binding.  Ye  fools 


1 88       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

and  blind !  for  whether  is  greater,  the  gold, 
or  the  temple  that  hath  sanctified  the  gold  ? 
And  whosoever  shall  swear  by  the  altar,  it  is 
nothing;  but  whosoever  shall  swear  by  the 
gift  that  is  upon  it,  he  is  bound.  Ye  blind  ! 
for  whether  is  greater,  the  gift,  or  the  altar 
that  sanctifieth  the  gift  ?  He,  therefore,  that 
sweareth  by  the  altar,  sweareth  by  it  and  all 
things  thereon.  And  he  that  sweareth  by 
the  temple,  sweareth  by  it,  and  by  Him  that 
dwelleth  therein.  And  he  that  sweareth  by 
the  heaven,  sweareth  by  the  throne  of  God, 
and  by  Him  that  sitteth  thereon. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites !  for  ye  pay  tithes  of  mint  and 
anise  and  cummin,  and  have  left  undone  the 
weightier  matters  of  the  law,  —  justice,  mercy 
and  faith.  Ye  blind  guides !  who  strain  out 
the  gnat  and  swallow  the  camel ! 

"  Woe  unto  you !  for  ye  devour  widows' 
houses,  even  while  for  a  pretense  ye  make 
long  prayers :  therefore  shall  ye  receive  the 
greater  damnation. 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  lS(} 

"  Woe  unto  you  !  for  ye  cleanse  the  outside 
of  the  cup  and  the  platter,  but  within  they 
are  full  from  extortion  and  excess.  Ye  are 
like  unto  whited  sepulchers,  which  outwardly 
appear  beautiful,  but  inwardly  are  full  of  dead 
men's  bones  and  of  all  uncleanness.  Even 
so  ye  appear  outwardly  righteous  unto  men, 
but  inwardly  ye  are  full  of  hypocrisy  and 
iniquity.  Blind  Pharisee!  cleanse  first  the 
inside  of  the  cup  and  platter,  that  the  outside 
may  become  clean  also. 

"Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites !  for  ye  build  the  sepulchers  of 
the  prophets,  and  garnish  the  tombs  of  the 
righteous,  and  say,  If  we  had  been  in  the  days 
of  our  fathers,  we  should  not  have  been  par- 
takers with  them  in  the  blood  of  the  prophets. 
Wherefore  ye  witness  to  yourselves  that  ye 
are  the  sons  of  them  that  slew  the  prophets. 
Fill  ye  up  then  the  measure  of  your  fathers ! " 

Such  impassioned  denunciation  from  the 
prince  of  peace  and  good-will  exalts  the  mean^ 
ing  of  Shakespeare's  lines,  — 


I  go       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

"  Great  affection,  wrestling  in  thy  bosom, 
Doth  make  an  earthquake  of  nobility." 

Offended  by  what  they  regard  a  too  harsh 
usage  of  his  wit  and  humor,  some  apostles  of 
higher  criticism  like  to  explain  away  parts  of 
the  record.  But  they,  too,  may  be  inconsist- 
ent—  over-anxious  to  hold  Jesus  to  their 
standard  of  the  ideal,  to  make  him  their 
Jesus.  Utterances  not  in  the  fashion  of  that 
good  taste,  mutual  courtesy,  and  compliment, 
which  prevail  at  a  Congress  of  All  Religions 
in  this  border-time  between  two  centuries  — 
these  are  conveniently  dropped  out,  on  the 
theory  of  misreporting,  or  of  interpolation 
for  partisan  and  theological  purposes.  Some- 
times the  incisive  invective  given  in  the  twenty- 
third  chapter  of  Matthew  and  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Luke  is  disposed  of  in  this  way. 
I  take  these  woes  to  be  in  the  main  genuine, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  occasion  and 
order  of  delivery.  I  have  not  adhered  strictly 
to  the  order  followed  in  either  gospel. 


Closing  of  the  Conflict  H)I 

In  his  fondness  for  making  Jesus  figure  as 
an  after-dinner  speaker, — though  in  nowise 
of  our  latter-day  type,  —  Luke  pictures  him 
furiously  hurling  his  woes  at  the  Pharisees 
and  scribes  while  actually,  as  an  invited  guest, 
partaking  of   their  hospitality.     A  dramatic 
situation,  surely,  but  one  not  less  improbable 
than  unbeautiful  to  look  upon.     Much  more 
acceptable    is    Matthew,   when    he   presents 
them  as  part  of  the  last  public  discourse  of 
the  Nazarene.     In  such  connection  they  nat- 
urally come  at  the  end  of  a  conflict  in  which 
this  compassionate  and  dauntless  friend  of  the 
"  weary  and  heavy-laden  "  has  been  pushed  on 
by  the  stern  "logic  of  events'*  to  act  more 
the  part  of  aggressive  reformer,  with  his  love- 
angers  and  "  heroic-angers,"  than  was  the  case 
when  he  set  out  on  his  divine  mission,  all- 
radiant  in  the  hope  of  converting  his  country- 
men, all-boundless  in  charity  and  faith. 

Moreover,  let  the  plain  word  be  spoken, 
that  this  God-like  man  had  some  sublimer 
business  than  that  of  the  mere  saint  teaching 


The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

non-resistance  and  the  amiabilities  of  life. 
After  due  buffeting  in  this  storm-and-battle 
world,  he  was  driven  to  the  sad  conviction, 
even  as  are  all  heroic  buffeters  for  higher  laws 
of  comradeship  —  the  conviction  that,  in  order 
to  advance  higher  human  relations,  he  must 
needs  "  cast  fire  upon  the  earth," — "  bring  not 
[merely]  peace,  but  a  sword."  It  is  possible 
the  peace-seeking  Jesus  was  not  wholly  a 
stranger  to  the  sentiment  so  strenuously  ex- 
pressed in  one  of  Carlyle's  letters  to  Emerson, 
the  prophet  of  the  New  World :  "  There  is 
good  in  all,"  he  says.  "  Let  us  well  remem- 
ber it ;  and  yet  remember,  too,  that  it  is  not 
good  always,  or  ever,  to  be  ( at  ease  in  Zion ' ; 
good  often  to  be  in  fierce  rage  in  Zion ;  and 
that  the  vile  Pythons  of  this  mud-world  do 
verily  require  to  have  sun-arrows  shot  into 
them,  and  red-hot  pokers  struck  through 
them,  according  to  occasion :  woe  to  the  man 
that  carries  either  of  these  weapons,  and  does 
not  use  it  in  their  presence/' 

It  is  not  a  sign  of  progress,  so  much  as  of 


Closing  of  the  Conflict 

degeneracy,  that  we  have  lost  somewhat  the 
brave  and  corrective  faculty  of  public  wrath 
at  iniquity.  "  There  is  no  more  sovereign 
eloquence,"  remarks  Victor  Hugo,  "than  the 
truth  in  indignation."  And  Luther  even  said, 
"When  I  am  angry,  I  can  pray  well  and 
preach  well." 

The  Jesus  seen  by  the  writer  in  certain  old 
paintings  of  Catholic  Europe,  with  face  so 
softened  into  sickly  sainthood  that  no  hero  at 
all  of  virile  mind  and  resolute  will  glances  at 
you,  —  this  is  not  the  Jesus  of  these  pages. 
Quite  otherwise.  The  Jesus  here  set  forth 
has  healthy  red  blood  in  him,  and  electric 
manhood,  and  a  sublime  potency  for  righteous 
combat,  —  living  not  in  passive  goodness, 
but  coping  in  all  true  knighthood  with  the 
"powers  of  darkness "  among  men.  In 
Browning's  lines,  he  knew 

"  How  to  grow  good  and  great, 
Rather  than  simply  good,  and  bring  thereby 
Goodness  to  breathe  and  live,  nor,  born  i'  the  brain, 
Die  there." 


Conclusion 


Looking  forth  on  eve  of  frost, 
Ere  day's  ruddy  lights  be  lost, 
High  in  the  blue  east  I  see 
Planet  of  Epiphany. 

Stood  the  star,  authentic  sign, 
In  the  nights  of  Palestine  ? 
Or  is  it  but  a  legend  fair 
Born  in  memory's  teeming  air, 
And  by  loyal  hearts  of  old 
Dowered  with  magic  manifold 

Very  God,  or  highest  man, 
Brother  cosmopolitan  — 
Naught  it  boots  to  such  as  find 
Touch  of  his  inspiring  mind  ; 
The  main  matter  is  that  we 
Catch  that  life's  sublimity, 
And  in  sacramental  mood 
Eat  the  flesh  and  drink  the  blood 
Of  his  moral  lovelihood. 

— Joseph  Truman. 


Conclusion 

*•* 

THESE  pages  might  be  multiplied  with 
still  other  expressions  of  that  aspect  of 
Jesus'  nature  made  prominent  herein.  Some 
omitted  sayings  the  reader  may  be  disposed 
to  supply.  Others,  admitted,  he  may  perhaps 
be  equally  disposed  to  exclude,  as  not  fittingly 
covered  by  the  terms  of  the  subject.  This  is 
to  be  expected.  For,  the  manifestation  of 
what  we  call  wit,  as  an  aspect  of  wisdom  in 
the  great  task  of  teaching,  so  varies  in  form 
and  degree,  from  the  most  rollicking  pleas- 
antry and  coarsest  ridicule,  comprehended  by 
all,  to  the  subtlest  satire  and  irony,  compre- 
hended by  few,  that  diverse  people  are  as 
diversely  affected  by  the  same  utterance  as 
they  are  diversely  affected  by  the  same  tem- 
perature of  the  air  they  breathe. 


iy8       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

I  confess  it  never  occurred  to  me  to  read 
the  far-reaching  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
as  a  representative  example  of  humor,  until  I 
happened  to  meet  with  Mr.  Shorthouse's  ex- 
position of  it  as  such,  quoted  in  Dr.  M.  D. 
Shutter's  "Wit  and  Humor  of  the  Bible." 
I  suppose  I  had  previously  been  —  perhaps 
ever  shall  be  —  too  completely  under  the  spell 
of  its  searching  pathos  to  be  much  open  to 
the  Humorous  side  of  it.  Let  this  be  said, 
however,  that  in  it  we  have  an  undercurrent 
of  humor  similar  to  that  welling  up  in  several 
parables  from  the  same  fount.  It  embodies 
one  more  of  the  vivid,  clear-cut  antitheses 
that  the  Nazarene  drew  between  the  typical 
"frozen  Pharisee, "  fast  matrixed  in  conven- 
tional religion  and  morality,  —  self-complacent, 
unpoetic,  unsympathetic,  —  and  the  hearty, 
impulsive,  passionate  wanderer  from  God  who 
after  a  season  returns  home  through  the 
saving  consciousness  and  repentance  of  sin. 

Making  broad,  then,  the  term  wit  as  an 
accompaniment  and  manifestation  of  wisdom, 


Conclusion 

we  may  see  that  striking  evidences  of  it  are 
constantly  furnished  in  Jesus'  parables,  in 
his  laconic  sayings,  in  the  unique  and  pictur- 
esque illustrations  of  his  thought.  Now  he 
lights  up  his  grave  discourse  with  a  bit  of 
pleasantry,  like  a  flash  of  sunlight  on  a  flow- 
ing river.  Now  he  excites  his  hearers  to  new 
and  unconventional  reasoning  by  startling 
paradoxes  or  unexpected  questions  and  an- 
swers. Now  he  confounds  captious  critics, 
or  crafty  adversaries,  with  close-welded  wit 
and  logic ;  sometimes  shutting  off  all  contro- 
versy with  a  single  retort  that  goes  straight 
to  the  heart  of  the  matter.  Yet  again,  he 
lays  bare  shams  and  shammers  with  satire 
and  ridicule,  —  ay,  on  occasion,  with  invec- 
tive, —  sharp  and  sure  of  aim. 

And  pleasantry,  repartee,  satire,  ridicule, 
irony,  invective,  —  all  these  manifestations  of 
Jesus'  wit  and  wisdom  were  sanctified  in  his 
master  motive  of  advancing  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  on  earth.  What  the  writer  has  en- 
deavored to  display  in  the  preceding  pages 


2OO       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

has  been  with  purpose  not  merely  intellectual, 
but  very  positively  religious  and  ethical.  In- 
deed, he  may  appear  as  offender  against  the 
"unities"  in  his  elastic  use  of  his  subject, 
precisely  because  of  the  supremacy  of  this 
purpose.  If  upon  the  reader  the  personality 
of  Jesus  has  not  grown  more  commanding  of 
homage,  by  reason  not  alone  of  his  invincible 
greatness  of  mind,  but,  more,  by  reason  of 
his  spiritual  kingship,  of  his  divine  heroism 
and  self-abnegation  —  if  through  these  pages 
the  reader  is  not  knit  closer  to  that  massive 
personality  in  bonds  of  gratitude  and  love, 
then  has  the  writer  labored  for  naught. 

A  son  of  "grace  and  truth/'  sent  into  this 
world  of  flesh  and  spirit  to  show  forth  the 
Father !  Pure  and  uncompromising  citizen 
of  heaven,  yet  with  feet  on  earth,  treading 
the  way  of  salvation  in  healthy  fellowship 
with  men  !  Prophet,  with  all  the  prophet's 
prayings  and  servings,  his  sorrows  and  per- 
secutions for  righteousness'  sake  ;  but  also 
a  comrade  mingling  in  the  relaxations  and 


Conchision  2OI 

friendships,  the  rejoicings  and  feast  ings  of  the 
social  man !  In  roundness  of  sympathy,  a 
"  high-priest "  indeed,  "  touched  with  the  feel- 
ing of  our  infirmities  "  !  rich  in  all  endowment 
to  "weep  with  those  who  weep  and  rejoice 
with  those  who  rejoice/' — rich  in  all  high- 
est responsiveness  to  the  smile  in  life  as 
well  as  the  tear;  —  with  the  sadness  and 
dignity  of  a  god,  and  the  joy  and  humility  of 
a  child !  This  poetic,  social  Jesus,  this  deep- 
feeling,  quick-glancing,  heaven-piercing  Jesus, 
sweeps  with  his  master  touch,  and  for  godward 
ends,  the  chords  of  wit,  of  humor,  of  pathos ! 
Marvelous  revealer  of  the  eternal  verities; 
divine  satirist  of  wrong  and  unveracity ; 
supreme  of  heroic  smiters  and  loving  sac- 
rificers,  what  reverent  Tennyson  says  I  also 
will  say : 

"Thou  seemest  human  and  divine, 
The  highest,  holiest  manhood,  thou." 


My  spirit  to  yours,  dear  brother, 

Do  not  mind  because  many  sounding  your  name  do 
not  understand  you, 

I  do  not  sound  your  name,  but  I  understand  you, 

I  specify  you  with  joy,  O  my  comrade,  to  salute  you, 
and  to  salute  those  who  are  with  you,  before  and 
since,  and  those  to  come  also, 

That  we  all  labor  together  transmitting  the  same  charge 
and  succession, 

We  few  equals  indifferent  of  lands,  indifferent  of 
nations, 

We,  enclosers  of  all  continents,  all  castes,  allowers 
of  all  theologies, 

Compassionaters,  perceivers,  rapport  of  men, 

We  walk  silent  among  disputes  and  assertions,  but  re 
ject  not  the  disputers  nor  anything  that  is  asserted, 

We  hear  the  bawling  and  din,  we  are  reach 'd  at  by 
divisions,  jealousies,  recriminations  on  every  side, 

They  close  peremptorily  upon  us  to  surround  us,  my 
comrade, 

Yet  we  walk  unheld,  free,  the  whole  earth  over,  jour- 
neying up  and  down  till  we  make  our  inefface- 
able mark  upon  time  and  the  diverse  eras, 

Till  we  saturate  time  and  eras,  that  the  men  and  women 
of  races,  ages  to  come,  may  prove  brethren  and 
lovers  as  we  are. 

—  Walt  Whitman 
("To  Him  that  Was  Crucified"}. 

(202) 


Index 


ABOLITION  movement,  in  America,  referred  to,  146. 

Addison,  on  laughter,  23. 

Adulterous  woman,  Jesus'  treatment  of,  151-156. 

Alms-giving,  to  be  in  secret,  162-163. 

Amiel,  on  satire,  42  ;  on  the  pain  of  being  misunderstood, 

58;  on  miracles,  122. 
Aphorisms,  Coleridge   on   the  value   of,  86;    Renan  on 

Jesus'  use  of,  86. 
Aristotle,  12. 
Authority,  rational  respect  for,  inculcated  by  Jesus,  91, 

149-151 ;  of  Jesus,  to  teach,  127-130. 

BAPTISM  of  John,  130. 

Barrow,  Isaac,  on  wit,  10. 

Beelzebub,  90,  127. 

Biblical  criticism  (see  "  Higher  criticism  "). 

Brooks,  Phillips,  on  the  rich  young  man,  97. 

Browning,  Robert,  on  greatness  with  goodness,  193. 

Buddha,  the,  his  method  contrasted  to  that  of  Jesus,  36- 

40;  on  parables,  72;  quotation  from  a  parable  by,  95; 

on  riches,  97 ;  on  miracles,  1 23,  1 24. 
Butler,  Bishop,  on  wit,  42. 

CALVIN,  JOHN,  his  strenuous  career,  14,  180. 

Canaanitish  woman,  Jesus  and  the,  27-29. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  his  humor,  1 5 ;  on  the  virtue  of  laughter, 


204       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

25-26;  contrasted  to  Emerson,  32-33;  on  popularity, 
100;  the  modern  prophet,  177;  on  the  hypocrite,  160; 
his  defense  of  righteous  wrath,  192. 

Chad  wick,  John  W.,  verses  on  Jesus,  quoted,  7. 

Charitable  judgment  inculcated  by  Jesus,  162. 

Chesterfield,  on  laughter,  25. 

Cities,  social  sins  of,  179-181. 

CLOSING  OF  THE  CONFLICT,  173-193. 

Clubin,  Captain,  example  of  a  hypocrite,  160. 

Coleridge,  on  aphorisms,  86. 

Comic,  the,  Dr.  Everett  on,  22;  Emerson  on,  25. 

Complaining  spirit,  rebuked  by  Jesus,  32,  52. 

CONCLUSION,  197-201. 

Confucius,  on  popularity,  100;  on  sincerity,  159. 

Consistency,  in  religion,  demanded  by  Jesus,  129. 

CONTENTS,  5. 

Corban,  no;  Luther  on  the  word,  no-ill. 

Crashaw,  Richard,  verses  on  the  Pharisee  and  Publican,  1 58. 

Criticism,  Biblical  (see  "  Higher  criticism  "). 

Crooker,  Joseph  Henry,  his"  Jesus  Brought  Back,"  11-12. 

DARWIN,  CHARLES,  12. 

David,  his  eating  of  the  shew-bread,  116-117. 

Devadetta,  37. 

Deuteronomy,  quoted  by  Jesus,  131-132 ;   referred  to  by 

Jesus,  175. 
Denunciations   of  willful  evil-doers,  by  Jesus,   176-193; 

comment  on  by  Mozoomdar,  172. 
Devil,  the,  49,  100   129,  166. 

Devils,  affliction  with,  27,  35,  66,  127,  141,  178-179. 
Dickens,  Charles,  reference  to  "  Great  Expectations,"  62 ; 

his  fine  characterization  of  a  hypocrite  in  Pecksniff,  160- 

161. 
Divorce,  Jesus  and  Moses  on,  113-114;  Hillel  on,  113. 


Index  205 

EDISON,  THOMAS  A.,  13. 

Elijah,  50,  73. 

Elisha,  73. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  referred  to,  14,  23,  32,  loo,  148, 
192;  his  "inaudible  laugh,"  23;  on  the  sense  of  the 
comic,  25 ;  quoted,  43,  58, 104, 144, 146, 159 ;  an  incident 
in  his  life,  80;  his  fine  humor,  175. 

Envy,  rebuke  of,  by  Jesus,  32,  52. 

Everett,  Dr.  Charles  Carroll,  quoted,  22. 

Evolution,  the  method  of  Jesus,  53-54. 

FASTING  and  feasting,  33,  35-36. 
Fault-finding  with  Jesus,  by  the  people,  35. 
French  proverbs,  quoted,  96,  98. 

GARRISON,  WILLIAM  LLOYD,  146. 

Gentiles,  admitted  to  the  kingdom,  27-31 ;  174-176,^^., 

181. 

German  proverb,  quoted,  96. 
German  scholarship,  4. 

Goethe,  quoted,  59,  96,  104;  his  "Faust"  referred  to,  67. 
Grecian  proverbs,  quoted,  n,  100. 
Grecian  tragedy,  quoted,  156. 

HAWTHORNE,  NATHANIEL,  his  depiction  of  hypocrisy,  160. 

Healing,  envy  of  Jesus'  success  in,  117,  126-127. 

"  Heathen,"  Jesus'  tendencies  toward  the,  27-31 ;  1 74-178 ; 

181. 

Hebrew  prophets,  intensity  of  the,  177. 
Hebrew  proverbs,  quoted,  95,  100. 
Herodians,  147,  149. 
Higher  criticism,  4,  11-12,  19;  corrected  by  the  sense  of 

humor,  23-40,  43~45> 
Hillel,  on  divorce,  113. 


206       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Holy  Spirit,  the  sin  against  the,  128-129. 

Homelessness  of  Jesus,  92. 

Hooykaas,  Dr.  I.,  on  the  inappreciation  of  Jesus  by  his 
kinsmen,  70. 

"  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  Hawthorne's,  160. 

Hugo,  Victor,  his  characterization  of  the  hypocrite,  160; 
his  Captain  Clubin,  160;  quoted,  193. 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  12. 

Humility,  79-80,  136,  168. 

•  Humor,  of  Jesus,  13,  15,  et  seq.\  versus  criticism,  23-40; 
in  the  parables,  43-56, 60-6 1 ;  in  his  shorter  sayings,  62- 
67,  73-83 ;  in  replies  to  opponents,  105-1 19 ;  in  his  prac- 
tical teachings,  130-142;  in  his  verbal  contests,  145-156; 
in  his  moral  exhortations,  162-169;  in  the  injunctions  of 
his  closing  days,  1 73-1 93 ;  the  characteristics  of,  reviewed, 
197-200. 

HUMOR  VERSUS  CRITICISM,  23-40. 

HYPOCRISY  AND  SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS,  157-169. 

Hypocrisy,  of  the  people,  concerning  gifts  to  God,  no; 
of  all  kinds,  rebuked  by  Jesus,  146,  159-169;  at  Jeru- 
salem, condemned  by  Jesus,  179-189;  Renan  on  Jesus' 
condemnation  of,  1 58  ;  Milton  on,  1 58 ;  Emerson  on,  1 59 ; 
Montaigne,  Victor  Hugo,  Rabelais,  Voltaire,  Carlyle, 
Thackeray,  Dickens  and  Hawthorne,  referred  to  or 
quoted  on,  160. 

IDEALISM  of  Jesus,  93. 

Importunity,  44-45. 

Inquiry,  the  attitude  of  our  age,  n. 

INTRODUCTION,  11-19. 

Inwardness  of  Jesus'  teaching,  in,  124,  140-142,  162-169. 

Irony  of  Jesus,  1 58,  et  seq. 

Isaiah,  quoted,  108,  in. 

Italian  proverbs,  quoted,  98,  180. 


Index  20? 

JAMES,  the  Apostle,  quoted,  123. 

"Jesus  Brought  Back,"  J.  H.  Crocker's,  12. 

Jesus,  his  re-discovery  in  modern  times,  12  ;  his  genius  for 
religion  and  ethics,  13;  his  passion  for  service,  13;  his 
wit  and  wisdom,  13,  et  seq.  (see  "Wit  and  Wisdom  of 
Jesus") ;  his  sublime  personality,  15-16;  his  health  and 
cheerfulness,  24 ;  his  human  insight,  26 ;  his  reply  to  the 
Canaanitish  woman,  27-29;  his  parable  of  the  Vineyard, 
29-32  (see  "Parables  of  Jesus");  his  reply  to  John's 
disciples,  33-34 ;  his  rebuke  of  self- righteousness,  34-35 ; 
his  defense  of  John  the  Baptist  and  himself,  35-36  ;  com- 
pared with  the  Buddha,  36-40 ;  the  wit  and  wisdom  of 
his  parables,  29-32,  44-45,  47~49>  5I-52»  53~5^'  60-62, 
131-142,  168-169,  I74~I79>  181-184,  198;  his  satires  on 
importunity,  44-45 ;  his  apt  comparisons,  46 ;  his  doc- 
trine of  responsibility,  5 1 ;  his  evolutionary  method,  53 ; 
his  ministry  to  the  common  people,  59-60 ;  his  teaching 
misunderstood,  59-67 ;  his  rebuke  of  superficiality,  60- 
62 ;  his  contest  with  the  spirit  of  literalism,  62-65 ;  his 
symbolism,  63-67;  unappreciated  at  home,  72-76;  his 
unfettered  judgments,  78-80 ;  he  enjoins  modesty  at  a 
feast,  79-81  ;  on  inviting  the  poor,  81 ;  on  Simon  and  the 
fallen  woman,  82-83 ;  "  who  is  greatest  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  ? "  83-84 ;  his  pithy  sayings  and  retorts,  87- 
10 1 ;  his  sincerity,  90-92 ;  his  knowledge  of  men,  93-96 ; 
on  riches,  98-99;  on  the  dangers  of  popularity,  99-100; 
his  reply  to  Peter,  101 ;  his  lack  of  foreign  lore,  107  ;  his 
interpretation  of  the  Law,  108-119;  his  detestation  of 
hypocrisy,  1 1 1 ;  his  conception  of  the  Messianic  hope, 
112-113;  on  divorce,  113-114;  on  the  Sabbath,  116-119; 
his  attitude  toward  miracles,  123-129 ;  his  practical  relig- 
ion, 129-142;  his  doctrine  of  salvation  by  service,  132- 
139 ;  on  the  inwardness  of  true  religion,  140-142  ;  hated 
for  his  economic  and  social  teachings,  145-146;  his  con- 


208       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

tests  with  opponents,  146-156;  concerning  the  widow  of 
seven  husbands,  147-148;  the  tribute-money,  149-151  ; 
the  adulterous  woman,  151-156;  rebuke  of  self- righteous- 
ness, 159-169;  his  final  conflict  at  Jerusalem,  173-193; 
parable  of  the  Two  Sons,  181-182  ;  of  the  Wicked  Hus- 
bandmen, 182-184;  the  denunciations,  179-193;  the 
characteristics  of  his  wit  and  wisdom  reviewed,  197-200; 
his  supreme  humanity,  200-201 ;  poetical  and  prose 
quotations  concerning,  viz.,  Chadwick,  7;  West,  8; 
Amiel,  58;  Hooykaas,  70;  Renan,  86,  158;  Paley,  87; 
Mozoomdar,  172;  Truman,  196;  Tennyson,  201 ;  Whit- 
man, 202. 

Jews,  pithy  sayings  of,  95,  100-101,  181. 

Job,  quoted,  67,  144. 

John  the  Baptist,  his  disciples  compared  with  those  of 
Jesus,  32-33;  Jesus' defense  of,  35-36;  rejected,  182. 

John,  the  First  Epistle  of,  quoted,  122. 

"  John,"  the  Gospel  of,  referred  to,  64-65 ;  quoted,  65-67, 

154. 

Jonah,  177. 
Jonson,  Ben,  39. 
Julian,  the  Emperor,  his  criticism  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus, 

48  note. 

KINDRED  AND  NEIGHBORS,  71-84. 

Koran,  popular  literal  interpretation  of  the,  64. 

LATIN  proverb,  quoted,  88. 

Laughter,  Dr.  Everett  on,  22  ;  Addison  on,  23  ;  Jesus  and, 

24,  26;    Emerson,  Lord  Chesterfield  and  Carlyle  on, 

25-26. 

Leviticus,  quoted  by  Jesus,  131-132. 
LIFE-SKETCHES  :  TURNING  "  MEN'S  EARS  INTO  EYES," 

43-56. 


Index  2OQ 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  his  humor  and  melancholy,  1 5 ;  quoted, 
115;  his  knowledge  of  and  quotation  from  the  Bible  and 
Shakespeare,  1 28  ;  his  righteous  anger,  1 50. 

Lip-service,  in. 

Literalism  rebuked,  62-67,  147-148. 

Luke,  quoted,  34,  44,  47-48,  51,  53,  60,  72-73*  7 6,  77,  80, 
81,  84,  90,  125-126, 129-130,  132-134, 148,  163-164,  168, 
178-179,  183-184,  186-189. 

Luther,  Martin,  his  career,  14;  on  the  word  Corban,  in  ; 
his  strenuous  labors,  180;  his  opposition  to  indulgences, 
185 ;  on  righteous  indignation,  193. 

MAGDALEN,  the,  91. 

Mammon,  the  service  of,  49. 

Mark,  quoted,  84,  no,  114,  130,  145,  166. 

Marriage,  147-148;  and  divorce,  113-115. 

"Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  160. 

Mary  and  Martha,  76. 

Matthew,  quoted,  27,  30-31,  33,  34,  35,  46,  51,  53,  56,  60, 
61,  72-73,  84,  88,  89,  90,  91,  92,  93,  94,  no,  in,  112, 
114,  116-117,  n8, 119,  124,  125,  127-128,  129-130, 135- 
136,  148,  150-151,  163-164,  174-176,  i77-!78>  *79» l8l~ 
182,  183-184,  186-189. 

Messiahship,  112-113,  124,  174-177,  184. 

Milton,  John,  quoted,  158. 

MIRACLES;  PRACTICAL  RELIGION,  123-142. 

Miracles,  Amiel  on,  122  ;  the  attitude  of  Jesus  toward,  123- 
129;  of  the  Buddha  toward,  123,  124. 

MISUNDERSTOOD,  59-67. 

Montaigne,  Michel  de,  on  the  hypocrite,  160. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  quoted,  78. 

Mosaic  Law,  twisted  by  scribes,  91, 108-1 12  ;  Jesus'  under- 
standing of,  107;  on  divorce,  113-115;  on  the  Sabbath, 
114-119;  on  adultery,  151-152. 


2IO       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

Mozoomdar,  Protap  Chunder,  on  Jesus'  condemnation  of 
the  Pharisees,  172. 

NAAMAN  the  Syrian,  73. 

Nathan  the  Prophet,  147. 

Nature,  Jesus'  use  of  illustrations  from,  61. 

Nicodemus,  Gospel  of,  quoted,  118;  referred  to,  126. 

OLD.  conservative  regard  for  the,  34. 
OPPOSITION  AND  QUOTATION,  105-119. 

PALEY,  on  the  correctness  of  Jesus'  use  of  rhetorical  fig- 
ures, 87. 

Parable,  the  Buddha  on  the  value  of  the,  72  ;  by  a  Persian 
king,  142. 

Parables  of  Jesus  considered :  the  Laborers  in  the  Vine- 
yard, 29-32 ;  the  Friend  at  Midnight,  44 ;  the  Widow 
and  the  Judge,  44-45;  t*16  Cunning  Steward,  47-49; 
the  Lawless  Steward,  49-51 ;  the  Ten  Talents,  51-52; 
the  Lost  Coin,  53;  the  Wedding-garment,  53 ;  the  Wheat 
and  the  Tares,  53 ;  the  Ten  Virgins,  54-56 ;  the  Sower, 
60-62  ;  the  Foolish  Rich  Man,  77  ;  the  Good  Samaritan, 
131-134;  the  Last  Judgment,  134-139;  the  Rich  Man 
and  Lazarus,  139-140;  the  Houses  Built  on  the  Sand 
and  on  the  Rock,  140-142 ;  the  Pharisee  and  the  Pub- 
lican, 168-179;  the  Supper  and  Invited  Guests,  176-179; 
the  Two  Sons,  181-182 ;  the  Wicked  Husbandmen,  182- 
184 ;  the  Prodigal  Son,  198. 

Parallel  sayings  to  some  of  Jesus',  78-82,  142. 

Parker,  Theodore,  on  divinity-school  training,  106-107. 

Paul,  quoted,  124. 

Pecksniff,  as  an  example  of  the  hypocrite,  160-161. 

Persian  saying,  quoted,  142. 

Peter,  rebuke  of,  by  Jesus,  JQI, 


Index  211 

"Phaedras"  of  Plato,  Socrates  in,  quoted  on  inviting  the 
poor,  81-82. 

Pharisee  and  the  Publican,  parable  of  the,  167-169. 

Pharisees,  33,  63,  106, 112,  113,  126,  127,  147, 149,  151, 168, 
172,  181,  187-189,  191,  198. 

Pilate,  his  sarcasm  concerning  hatred  of  Jesus,  118,  126. 

PITHY  SAYINGS  AND  RETORTS,  87-101. 

Plato,  148;  his  report  of  a  saying  by  Socrates  parallel  to 
one  by  Jesus,  81-82. 

Poor,  Jesus  on  the,  91. 

Popularity,  indifference  of  Jesus  to,  79,  99-101. 

Practical  religion,  46 ;  123-142;  186-189. 

Prayer  and  piety,  44-46,  161-169. 

PREFACE,  3. 

Prophets,  not  honored  at  home,  73. 

Proverbs,  parallels  to  some  of  Jesus',  78-82;  from  the 
Grecian,  1 1, 100 ;  from  the  Latin,  88 ;  from  Gautama  the 
Buddha,  89,  95;  from  the  Spanish,  91,  96;  from  the 
Hebrew,  95,  100;  from  the  Veman  and  the  Tamal,  95; 
from  the  French,  96,  98;  from  the  German,  96;  from 
the  Italian,  98,  180;  from  Confucius,  100. 

Psalms,  quoted,  184. 

Pyncheon,  Judge,  Hawthorne's  creation  of,  160. 

QUOTATION,  Emerson  and  Renan  on,  104 ;  opposition  and, 
in  the  life  of  Jesus,  105-119. 

RABELAIS,  on  hypocrisy,  referred  to,  160. 

Renan,  Ernest,  on  Jesus'  use  of  aphorisms,  86;   on  the 

force  and  permanence  of  Jesus'  rhetoric,  158. 
Riches,  49,  77-81,  96-99,  139-140. 
Rothschilds,  the,  13. 
Russell,  Lord  John,  quoted,  87. 
Russian  saying,  title-page  and  1 5. 


212       The  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus 

SABBATH,  the,  Jesus  on,  116-119,  126. 

Sadducees,  63,  106,  139,  147,  149,  181. 

Satan,  101. 

Satire,  of  Jesus,  54,  et  seq.t    133. 

Savonarola,  his  rebukes  of  the  sins  of   Florence  which 

made  him  a  martyr,  180. 
Scribes,  91,  147,  151,  184,  186-189. 
Self-righteousness,  rebuked  by  Jesus,  34-35,  159-169. 
Service,  132. 

Seward,  William  H.,  128. 
Shakespeare,   12-13,  39»   I2^;   h*8  sanity  and  truth,  14; 

quoted,  96,  159,  190. 
Shorthouse,  his  exposition  of  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son, 

.98 

Shutter,  Dr.   Marion  D.,  his  "  Wit  and  Humor  of   the 

Bible,"  4,  95  and  note,  198. 

Sincerity,  the  beauty  of,  159-160;  Confucius  on,  159. 
Sins  of  cities,  179-181. 
Socrates,  on  inviting  the  poor,  81-82. 
Solon,  quoted,  115. 
Spanish  proverbs,  quoted,  91,  96. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  12. 
Sumner,  Charles,  146. 
Symbolism,  of  Jesus,  53-56,  65-67,  et  seq. 

TAMAL,  the,  quoted,  95. 

Temple  in  Jerusalem,  beauty  and  enchantment  of  the,  as 

seen  from  the  Mount  of  Olives,  17. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  quoted,  201. 
Thackeray  on  hypocrisy,  referred  to,  1 60. 
"  Toilers  of  the  Sea,"  Victor  Hugo's  depiction  of  Captain 

Lubin  in,  as  example  of  hypocrisy,  160. 
Truman,  Joseph,  verses  on  Jesus,  196. 
Trusteeship,  51-52. 


Index 

UNBELIEF  at  Jerusalem,  179-181. 

VANQUISHED  CRAFT,  145-146. 

Veman,  the,  quoted,  95. 

Voltaire,  on  hypocrisy,  referred  to,  160. 

WEST,  JAMES  H.,  verses  on  Jesus,  quoted,  8. 

Whitman,  Walt,  quoted :  "  He  is  the  Answerer,"  144 ;  "  To 
Him  That  Was  Crucified,"  202. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  quoted,  172. 

"  Wit  and  Humor  of  the  Bible,"  Dr.  Shutter's,  4,  95  and 
note,  198. 

Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Jesus,  13,  15,  et  seq.;  in  the  parables, 
43-56,  60-61  ;  in  his  shorter  sayings,  62-67,  73-83;  in 
replies  to  opponents,  105-1 19 ;  in  his  practical  teachings, 
130-142;  in  his  verbal  contests,  145-156;  in  his  moral 
exhortations,  162-169;  in  the  injunctions  of  his  closing 
days,  173-193  ;  the  characteristics  of,  reviewed,  197-200. 

Wit,  Isaac  Barrow  on,  10;  Bishop  Butler  on,  42. 

Work,  comparative  value  of  different  kinds  of,  32. 

Worry,  comment  of  Jesus  on,  76. 

ZAREPHATH,  73. 


Carlyle  and  Emerson: 
a  Contrast 


Carlyle  and  Emerson: 
a  Contrast 


JN  SETTING  down  the  salient  differences 
of  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  the  writer  of  this 
articlejs  quite  conscious  of  the  difficulty,  how 
"to^trongly^tat^one  fact  without  seeming  to 
belie  some  other."  Radically  unlike^jiideed, 
were  these  two  prophets  of  the  century^jas  to 
heredity  and  environment,  temperament  and 
taste,  intellectual  affinities,  means  and  meth- 
ods of  work.  Reared  in  the  home-environ- 
ment of  a  poor  peasant  father,  of  gloomy,  de- 
spairing temperament,  and  in  the  social  atmos- 
phere of  a  gloomy,  despairing  Scotch  Calvin- 
ism; in  bondage  much  of  his  life  to  grinding 
poverty  and  irritating  dyspepsia — truly,  a 
full  share  of  the  shadows  attended  Thomas 
Carlyle 's  steadfast  journey  across  the  earth. 

Born  neither  to  riches  nor  to  poverty, 
Emerson's  lot  cast  him  in  a  civilization  hav- 
ing the  freshness  and  hope  of  youth  about  it. 
Heir  to  a  constitution  not  vigorous  nor  buoy- 
ant, yet,  by  dint  of  temperance,  both  in  work 


2          Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

and  living,  after  thirty  he  averaged  well  most 
of  his  years.  His  mother  was  superb  in  spirit 
and  sense;  his  father,  a  prominent  Boston 
minister,  of  marked  literary  tastes,  handsome 
and  courteous,  with  the  manners  of  a  gentle- 
man. On  the  whole,  both  as  to  heredity  and 
environment,  Nature  was  exceptionally  kind 
to  the  Concord  Sage. 

Nigh  forty  years  old  was  the  Sage  of  Chelsea 
before  he  terminated  his  selfbanishment  to 
the  grim  solitude  of  "the  loneliest  nook  in 
Britain."  Here  were  black  and  bleak  moor- 
lands, wild,  sombre  scenery  enough;  no  social 
intercourse  to  correct  prejudice  and  headiness ; 
no  child,  with  its  tyrannies,  disorders,  merry 
laughters,  to  break  in  upon  the  monotony  of 
his  isolated  life — far  apart  from  men  he  work- 
ed, sustained  only  by  brave-hearted  Jane  , 
Welsh,  and  his  own  Promethean  faith  and  will. 

Emerson,  likewise,  valued  full  well  the 
worth  of  solitude,  but  he  kept  from  early 
years  on  more  intimate  terms  with  the  centres 
of  culture  and  many-sided  life. 

/  Heredity  and  environment  conspired  to 
make  the  Scotchman  paint  a  world  of  imperi- 
ous force,  in  which  shadows  predominate. 
On  the  contrary,  they  conspired  to  make  the 
American  paint  that  same  world  one  of  fructi- 
fying love,  with  excess  of  lights.  Both,  how- 
ever, were  one  in  the  faith  of  faiths,  that  God, 
not  the  Devil,  Right,  not  Wrong,  rules  invin- 
cibly this  universe.  Both  were  spiritualists 
as  opposed  to  materialists;  matter  is  only  the 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast          3 

symbol  and  changing  vesture  of  "the  Over- 
Soul.  \    Both  felt  the  mystic  ties  of  the  least 
w  tmtcPthe  greatest,  the  manifold  kinships  and 
correspondences  of  the  Infinite  Organism.   In 
this  also  they  were  in  accord,  that  the  regen- 
eration of  society  must  come  through  the  re- 
generation of  individual  men.     Underneath 
all  their  striking  divergences  there  is  funda- 
mental   agreement    in    spirit    and    purpose. 
/^'Though  I  see  well  enough,"  writes  Carlyle  to 
f  his  friend,  "what  a  great  deep  cleft  divides  us 
'    in  our  ways  of  practically  looking  at  this 
"\  world,  I  see,  also  (as  probably  you  do  your- 
self), where  the  rock-strata,  miles  deep,  unite 
i  again;  and  the  two  poor  souls  are  at  one/' 

I  Setting  high  value  on  one  another's  char- 
acter and  mission,  each  was  advocate  of  the 
other  to  his  countrymen.  Emerson  admires 
Carlyle's  invincible  manhood,  his  massive 
strength,  his  royal  rush  of  rhetoric.  In  turn, 
Carlyle  rejoices  in  the  pure  insight  and  sin- 
cerity of  his  friend's  intellect,  in  his  gentleness 
and  power  of  repose,  yet  to  the  last  he  seemed 
deluded  with  the  conceit  that  he  was  the 
superior  man  of  the  two.  Mrs.  Carlyle  even 
writes  him,  "He  (Emerson)  had  no  ideas  (ex- 
cept mad  ones)  that  he  had  not  got  out  of 
you." 

Each  writer  moves  in  his  own  orbit,  inde- 
pendent of  the  other — the  most  independent 
of  minds.  Neither  has  any  kinship  in  litera- 
ture with  the  milliner  or  conventional  tailor. 
But  their  styles  are  as  antithetical  as  the  men. 


4          Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

Of  his  contemporary  Emerson  declares: 
11  There  is  more  character  than  intellect  in 
every  sentence."  But  of  Emerson's  sentences 
who  will  affirm  which  is  the  predominant 
force,  so  even-footed  are  the  two?  To  the 
uninitiated,  the  Scotchman's  vehicle  of  ex- 
pression is  generally  forbidding  and  irritating. 
In  describing  the  style  of  Richter,  and  that  of 
the  hero  of  "Sartor  Resartus,"  he  very  nearly 
describes  his  own  style./"  Verily,  a  new  style, 
plentiful  in  coined  words,  Germanic  com- 
pounds, allusions  not  common,  double-action- 
ed  phrases,  parenthetical  sentences  in  abund- 
ance, wheels  within  wheels,  whole  clocks  in 
fact — sentences  broken  and  loose-jointed, 
angular  and  sprawling,  trip-hammer  exag- 
gerations, sharp  antitheses  of  the  great  and 
little,  quips  of  humor,  familiar  quotations 
new-minted,  bends  and  surprises,  as  of  the 
winding  streets  of  some  European  cities- 
heterogeneous  elements  many,  yet  molten  and 
flowing,  with  strange  picturesqueness,  and 
fascination,  too/if  once  you  get  afloat  in  the 
current  of  it  all. 

Not  so  unique  and  imposing  is  our  Ameri- 
can seer's  medium  of  communication  to  his 
fellows.  Less  emancipated  is  he  from  classic 
models.  Yet  how  freely  he  also  swings  his 
thought!  How  refreshingly  void  of  affecta- 
tion! He,  too,  indulges,  not  a  little,  in  rhe- 
torical antitheses,  paradoxes,  and  the  exag- 
gerations of  strong  statement.  There  is  a 
mingling  of  surprising  boldness,  tempered 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast          5 

with  such  gentle  and  winsome  courtesy. 
There  are  the  most  classic  and  the  most  home- 
ly allusions,  the  most  masculine  virility  and 
equally  feminine  delicacy  and  persuasiveness. 
Unlike  his  contemporary,  he  delights  in  the 
epigrammatic  structure,  in  short  sentences, 
plentiful  in  choice  Anglo-Saxon  words,  and 
sparse  in  compounds,  adjectives,  and  super- 
latives. For  making  maxims  his  genius  is  of 
the  first  order.  His  sentences  are  held  to- 
gether about  as  so  many  pearls  are  held  to- 
gether by  a  thread,  yet  in  inward  unity  withal. 
Seldom  do  they  come  encumbered  with  the 
parenthesis,  or  in  a  form  sprawling,  ragged- 
edged,  askew,  or  (though  poetic)  overdressed 
in  any  fashion.  They  are  not  the  ponderous 
battle-axe;  rather  the  trim  arrow  of  Apollo, 
shot  straight  at  the  target.  If  there  be  dif- 
ficulty in  apprehending  the  thought  of  these 
writers,  it  is  in  the  one  case  due  more  to  the 
affluent  and  novel  complexity  of  the  rhetoric^ 
in  the  other  more  to  the  brevity  of  it.  What 
writer  than  Emerson  ever  more  faithfully  ap- 
plied Carlyle's  own  suggestion  to  him  con- 
cerning  authorship :  "The  true  value  is  deter- 
mined by  what  we  do  not  write?" 

Serious  and  weighty  of  matter  as  they  are, 
neither  author  falls  into  the  style  of  "dry-as- 
dust."  Both  have  the  glance  of  the  man  of 
humor.  They  know  well  how  to  light  up 
their  pages  with  its  relishable  vein;  to  salt 
them  with  pregnant  wit  and  satire.  Yet  how 
differently  do  they  manifest  this  quality  of 
^mind!  Carlyle  is  full  of  abandon — in  their 


6          Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

use  almost  a  reveller.  As  to  his  piercing  and 
pictorial  wit  his  generous  admirer,  Emerson, 
put  the  praise  of  "Frederick  The  Great"  this 
strong — "infinitely  the  wittiest  book  that 
ever  was  written."  In  humor  he  floats  every- 
thing, even  the  most  sacred  subjects.  More 
prone  than  his  contemporary  to  seperate  the 
part  from  the  whole,  he  gives  humor  a  more 
pessimistic  shading.  In  exaggerating  the 
sins  and  follies  of  his  fellowmen  he  not  un- 
frequently  plays  the  bear  and  "horse  jockey." 

Though  not  less  sleepless  in  his  critical 
faculty,  Emerson's  kindlier  judgment  and 
more  delicate  taste  temper  the  e^rcise  of  it. 
The  humor  that  takes  you  out  or  yourself,  on 
a  splashing  wave  of  laughter — well,  look  not 
for  that  in  one  who  could  quote  with  apparent 
approval  Chesterfield's  saying,  "I  am  sure, 
since  I  had  the  use  of  my  reason,  no  human 
being  has  heard  me  laugh."  One  cannot  but 
feel  that  Margaret  Fuller  was  right.  Return- 
ing from  England,  and  being  asked  by  her 
Concord  friend,  /if  she  visited  Carlyle,  she 
frankly  retorted:  vYes,  and  his  laugh  is  worth, 
twenty  of  yours."  It  is  the  "inaudible  laugh," 
gently  raising  your  risibles,  that  frequently 
lies  in  wait  for  the  understanding  reader  of 
Emerson.  The  fountain  of  wit  and  humor 
is  more  intermittent  than  in  the  hearty 
Scotchman,  with  a  more  stinted  stream.  But 
the  quality  is  finer,  the- light  flashed  upon  the 
matter  in  hand  purer,  f  Perhaps,  however,  it 
is  sometimes  too  subtle  and  hidden  in  the 
folds  of  serious  discourse,  to  be  readily  ap- 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast          7 

prehended.  /By  citing  two  or  three  illustra- 
tions from  the  pages  of  each  of  these  writers 
the  reader  will  better  realize  how  marked  is 
the  contrast  in  the  manifestations  of  their 
wit  and  humor.  Take  the  following  from 
"English  Traits,"  that  profound  and  just 
analysis  of  another  people's  character/" When 
you  see  on  the  Continent  the  well-dressed 
Englishman  come  into  his  ambassador's 
chapel,  and  put  his  face  for  silent  prayer  into 
his  smooth-brushed  hat,  one  cannot  help  feel- 
ing how  much  national  pride  prays  with  him, 
and  the  religion  of  a  gentleman.  So  far  is  he 
from  attaching  any  meaning  to  the  words, 
that  he  believes  himself  to  have  done  almost 
the  generous  thing,  and  that  it  is  very  conde- 
scending in  him  to  pray  to  God./ 

"The  Anglican  church  is  marked  by  the 
grace  and  good  sense  of  its  forms,  by  the  man- 
ly grace  of  its  clergy.  The  gospel  it  preaches 
is,  'By  taste  are  ye  saved.'  It  keeps  the  old 
structures  in  repair,  spends  a  world  of  money 
in  music  and  building;  and  in  buying  Pugin, 
and  architectural  literature.  It  has  a  general 
good  name  for  amenity  and  mildness.  It  is 
not  in  ordinary  a  persecuting  church ;  it  is  not 
inquisitorial,  not  even  inquisitive,  is  perfectly 
well  bred,  and  can  shut  its  eyes  on  all  proper 
occasions.  If  you  let  it  alone,  it  will  let  you 
alone.  But  its  instinct  is  hostile  to  all  change 
in  politics,  literature,  or  social  arts. 

"The  doctrine  of  the  Old  Testament  is  the 
religion  of  England.  The  first  leaf  of  the 


8          Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

New  Testament  it  does  not  open.  It  be- 
lieves in  a  Providence  which  does  not  treat 
with  levity  a  pound  sterling.  They  are 
neither  transcendentalists  nor  Christains. 
They  put  up  no  Socratic  prayer,  much  less 
any  saintly  prayer  for  the  queen's  mind;  ask 
neither  for  light  nor  right,  but  say  bluntly, 
'Grant  her  in  health  and  wealth  long  to  live.' 
And  this  from  the  " Conduct  of  Life,"  a  de- 
lightfully piquant  description,  duplicating  the 
experience  of  so  many  other  men  of  the  writing 
guild. 

"With  brow  bent,  with  firm  intent,  the  pale 
scholar  leaves  his  desk  to  draw  a  freer  breath, 
and  get  a  juster  statement  of  his  thought,  in 
the  garden-walk.  He  stoops  to  pull  up  a 
purslain,  or  a  dock,  that  is  choking  the  young 
corn,  and  finds  there  are  two:  close  behind 
the  last  is  a  third;  he  reaches  out  his  hand  to 
a  fourth;  behind  that  are  four  thousand  and 
one.  He  is  heated  and  untuned,  and,  by  and 
by,  wakes  up  from  his  idiot  dream  of  chick- 
weed  and  red-root,  to  remember  his  morning 
thought,  and  to  find,  that,  with  his  adaman- 
tine purposes,  he  has  been  duped  by  a  dande- 
lion. A  garden  is  like  those  pernicious  ma- 
chineries we  read  of,  every  month,  in  the  news- 
papers, which  catch  a  man's  coat-skirt  or  his 
hand,  and  draw  in  his  arm,  his  leg,  and  his 
whole  body  to  irresistible  destruction.  In  an 
evil  hour  he  pulled  down  his  wall,  and  added 
a  field  to  his  homestead.  No  land  is  bad,  but 
land  is  worse.  If  a  man  own  land,  the  land 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast          9 

owns  him.  Now  let  him  leave  home,  if  he 
dare.  Every  tree  and  graft,  every  hill  of 
melons,  row  of  corn,  or  quickset  hedge,  all  he 
has  done,  and  all  he  means  to  do,  stand  in  his 
way,  like  duns,  when  he  would  go  out  of  his 
gate.  The  devotion  to  these  vines  and  trees 
he  finds  poisonous.  Long  free  walks,  a  circuit 
of  miles,  free  his  brain,  and  serve  his  body. 
Long  marches  are  no  hardship  to  him.  He 
believes  he  composes  easily  on  the  hills.  But 
this  pottering  in  a  few  square  yards  of  garden 
is  dispiriting  and  drivelling.  The  smell  of 
the  plants  has  drugged  him,  and  robbed  him 
of  energy.  He  finds  a  catalepsy  in  his  bones. 
He  grows  peevish  and  poor-spirited.  The 
genius  of  reading  and  of  gardening  are  anta- 
gonistic, like  resinous  and  vitreous  electricty. 
One  is  concentrative  in  sparks  and  shocks :  the 
other  is  diffuse  strength;  so  that  each  dis- 
qualifies its  workman  for  the  other's  duties. 

As  Emerson  has  presented  an  English  trait, 
let  Carlyle  wield  his  more  ponderous  weapon 
against  his  countrymen. 

"Alas,  it  will  be  found,  I  doubt  not,  that  in 
England  more  than  in  any  country,  our 
Public  Life  and  our  Private,  our  State  and 
our  Religion,  and  all  that  we  do  and  speak 
(and  the  most  even  of  what  we  think),  is  a 
tissue  of  half-truths  and  whole-lies;  of  hypo- 
crisies, conventionalisms,  worn-out  tradi- 
tionary rags  and  cobwebs;  such  a  life-garment 
of  beggarly  incredible  and  uncredited  falsities 
as  no  honest  souls  of  Adam's  Posterity  were 


10        Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

ever  enveloped  in  before/  And  we  walk 
about  in  it  with  a  stately  gesture,  as  if  it  were 
some  priestly  stole  or  imperial  mantle;  not 
the  foulest  beggar's-gabardine  that  ever  was. 
No  Englishman  dare  believe  the  truth.  He 
stands,  for  these  two-hundred  years,  en- 
veloped in  lies  of  every  kind;  from  nadir  to 
zenith  an  ocean  of  traditionary  cant  surrounds 
him  as  his  life-element.  He  really  thinks  the 
truth  dangerous.  Poor  wretch,  you  see  him 
everywhere  endeavouring  to  temper  the  truth 
by  taking  the  falsity  along  with  it,  and  weld- 
ing them  together;  this  he  calls  'safe  course,' 
1  moderate  course/  and  other  fine  names; 
there,  balanced  between  God  and  the  Devil, 
he  thinks  he  can  serve  two  masters,  and  that 
things  will  go  well  with  him/  ' 

"Anyone  acquainted  with  the  life  of  Coler- 
idge, that  poetic,  mystical,  vague  though  vast 
genius,  must  appreciate  the  unique  critical 
humor  of  the  following  description  of  him,  as 
a  conversationalist. 

"It  was  talk  not  flowing  any  whither  like 
a  river,  but  everywhither  in  inextricable  cur- 
rents and  regurgitations,  like  a  lake  or  sea; 
terribly  deficient  in  definite  goal  or  aim;  nay 
often  in  logical  intelligibility;  what  you  are  to 
believe  or  do,  on  any  earthly  or  heavenly 
thing,  obstinately  refusing  to  appear  from  it. 

"To  sit  as  a  passive  bucket  of  water  and 
be  pumped  into  whether  you  consent  or  not, 
can  in  the  long  run  be  exhilarating  to  no 
creature,  how  eloquent  soever  the  flood  of 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast        11 

utterance  that  is  descending.  But  if  it  be 
withal  a  confused  unintelligible  flood  of 
utterance  threatening  to  submerge  all  known 
landmarks  of  thought,  and  drown  the  world 
and  you!  I  have  heard  Coleridge  talk  with 
eager  musical  energy  two  stricken  hours,  his 
face  radiant  and  moist,  and  communicate  no 
meaning  whatsoever  to  any  individual  of  his 
hearers. 

"He  began  anywhere.  You  put  some 
question  to  him,  made  some  suggestive  ob- 
servation. Instead  of  answering  this,  or  de- 
cidedly setting  out  toward  answer  of  it,  he 
would  accumulate  formidable  apparatus,  log- 
ical swim-bladders,  transcendental  life-pre- 
servers, and  other  precautionary  and  vehicula- 
tory  gear  for  setting  out;  perhaps  did  at  last 
get  under  way,  but  was  swiftly  solicited,  turn- 
ed aside  by  the  glance  of  some  radiant  new 
game  on  this  hand  or  that  into  new  courses, 
and  ever  into  new;  and  before  long  into  all  the 
Universe,  where  it  was  uncertain  what  game 
you  would  catch,  or  whether  any." 

Carlyle  and  Emerson  are  both  poet-proph- 
ets of  the  highest  order.  In  prose  they  use 
the  language  of  the  poet-prophet.  But  the 
one  is  epic,  the  other  lyric.  The  former 
dramatizes  the  outward  forces  acting  upon 
man  as  divine  coercive  agencies  of  his  growth. 
"The  actual  well  seen,"  he  reminds  Emerson, 
"is  the  ideal."  The  latter  does  not  lose  sight 
of  this  truth,  but  he  looks  at  the  ideal  as  the 
actual.  His  gaze  fixes  more  upon  the  inward, 


12         Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

spiritual,  creative  nature  of  man,  giving  shape 
and  color  to  the  external  world.  To  Carlyle 
he  truly  remarks,  "You  have  a  whim  for  deal- 
ing en  grand  monarque."  The  poetic  appears 
on  a  massive  scale,  largely  as  ruin  and  devas- 
tation, the  Juggernaut  chariot  of  the  gods  of 
force.  He  plays  the  symphonies  of  the  awful 
and  Plutonic,  the  sublime  in  conflict  and 
destruction — the  symphonies  of  "truth  clad 
in  hell-fire."  As  Wagner  is  in  music,  so  is  he 
in  literature. 

Emerson  is  rather  Mozart  and  Mendels- 
sohn fused  in  one.  He  catches  the  poetic  in 
the  gentler  and  more  veiled  aspects  of  cosmic- 
life.  He  is  poet  of  the  inner  essence  and 
beauty  of  common  things,  of  the  hidden  tie 
of  flower  and  star,  of  bird-song  and  voice  of 
man,  of  a  sunbeam  and  a  human  emotion — 
the  poet  of  constructive  harmonies  and  mystic 
unities,  whereby  "the  universe  duplicates  it- 
self in  every  atom,"  and  coheres  in  the  soul 
of  God.  The  little  and, common  he  makes 
matters  of  mystery,  and 

"Makes  mysteries  matters  of  mere  every-day." 

Carylw^s  the  mountain  torrent  in  spring- 
time, often  vexed  by  its  own  impetuosity — a 
mighty,  rushing  torrent,  sweeping  downward 
in  wild  strength,  over-leaping  barriers,  up- 
rooting trees,  foaming  and  splashing  over 
rocks,  irresistibly  scooping  out  a  channel  for 
itself.  Emerson  is  rather  the  river  when  it 
reaches  the  lowlands,  and  flows  through 
generous  forests  and  valleys,  broadening  and 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       13 

moving  with  calm  strength  to  the  great  ocean. 
|  In  reading  Carlyle,  one  often  feels  himself  in 
1  wild  solitudes  of  the  lofty  mountains,  or  tossed 
on  the  raging  billows  of  the  stormy  sea.  Again 
you  think  of  ^Etna  and  Vesuvius  in  eruption 
in  the  night-time.  What  terrific  splendor  in 
the  billowy  sheets  of  fire  and  smoke,  the 
belchings  of  black  flame-masses,  as  if,  in  very 
truth,  Titans  lay  at  the  base  madly  struggling 
to  be  free!  This  Titan  of  dramatic  power 
seems  an  imprisoned  spirit,  striving  to  deliver 
himself  from  a  mountain  of  accumulated 
knowledge,  fusing  in  the  Hebraist  feeling, 
that,  "God  is  a  consuming  fire/'  With  power 
and  splendor,  with  Shakspearian  abandon, 
he  frees  himself  from  all  constraints  of  con- 
ventional writing.  He  sports,  as  it  were, 
with  vasty  heights  and  depths,  the  eternities, 
the  fateful  destinies,  the  ever  challenging 
mysteries  of  a  cosmos  of  conflict,  and  of  the 
"storm  and  stress"  of  man,  as  chief  player  in 
this  whirling  earth-drama. 

Egierson,  surely,  may  not  be  described  in 
such  fashion.  Never  do  we  get  from  speech 
of  his  the  impression  of  a  nature  in  eruption 
or  in  conflagration.  He  is  never  a  god  in  a 
fury.  He  is  not  Jehovah  in  the  awful  light- 
ning of  Sinai,  nor  Jove  hurling  thunderbolts 
from  Olympus.  He  is  more  as  Brahma,  des- 
cribed in  his  poem  of  that  name.  His  antag- 
onism to  wrong  rarely  spends  itself  in  wrath, 
sublime  or  otherwise.  With  self-control  and 
calm  dignity,  he  holds  steady  the  reins  of  all 
passion,  and  dissolves  all  darkness  in  light. 


14       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

In  delivering  the  truth,  Carlyle  is  more 
concrete  and  personal.  Emerson  is  more  im- 
personal and  abstract;  he  deals  more  with 
classes  and  universal  principles.  Power  with 
the  one  is  dynamical;  with  the  other  it  is  re- 
pose. One  is  the  whirlwind  and  heat-light- 
ning; the  other  is  the  gentle  south-wind  and 
silent  energy  of  tempered  sunshine.  One  is 
passion  and  fire;  the  other  serenity  and  light. 
And  "light,"  Carlyle  himself  somewhere  re- 
minds us,  "is  stronger  than  fire." 

Striking,  in  the  matter  of  style,  as  is  the 
contrast  of  these  two  minds,  it  is  hardly  less 
striking  when  we  contemplate  their  literary 
taste,  and  their  attitude  toward  the  world. 
How  characteristic  that  Carlyle  should  relish 
the  wild,  picturesque  strength  of  the  grotesque 
myths  of  the  Norsemen,  and  that  Emerson's 
more  aesthetic  sense  should  prefer  the  beauty 
and  grace  of  those  of  the  Greeks! — that  the 
latter  gravitated  readily  to  Plato,  as  the  model 
of  philosophers,  while  the  former  scarcely 
deemed  him  worth  his  reading.  Both,  how- 
ever, had  that  catholic  sympathy  and  imagi- 
nation whereby  they  could  place  themselves 
in  the  interior  natures  of  many  types  of  men. 
But,  on  the  whole,  Carlyle  evinces  the  more 
special  genius  for  biography.  No  writer  goes 
with  deeper  passion  into  the  heart  of  his  hero. 
He  gravitates  more  readily  toward,  and  better 
appreciates,  the  mighty  men  of  action — the 
Cromwells,  the  Fredericks,  the  Mirabeaus; 
while  the  affinities  of  the  saintly  Emerson  are 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       15 

more  the  seers  and  poets,  the  men  of  contem- 
plation in  human  history. 

Both  these  tonic  and  reforming  intellects 
aimed  to  free  men  in  the  power  of  truth  and 
justice.  But  how  free  them?  Herein  lay 
the  parting  of  the  ways.  Carlyle  thought 
that  men's  chief  necessity  is  to  be  well  gov- 
erned. They  are  a  flock  of  sheep,  requiring 
a  shepherd  to  watch  and  lead  them.  Your 
pet  ideas  of  liberty  are  trending  devilward,  to 
social  anarchy  and  disintegration.  Emerson 
threw  himself  on  the  opposite  thought.  Men 
need  to  be  let  alone.  In  the  unwritten  law  of 
the  moral  sentiment  each  shall  find  his  trusty 
shepherd.  One  was  monarchical,  the  other 
democratic.  In  political  philosophy  one  ex- 
pressed more  the  spirit  of  the  German  Bis- 
marck, "the  man  of  Iron;"  the  other  the 
spirit  of  the  American  Jefferson,  the  apostle 
of  liberty,  and  faith  in  the  common  people.  ~ 
Emerson  tells  how  he  opened  to  Carlyle  his 
"theory  of  no  government,"  and  got  from  him 
little  else  than,  "objections  and  fun."  For 
Carlyle  the  "can-man"  shall  have  all  worship, 
as  the  source  of  progress  in  state  and  church; 
and  the  use  of  force  shall  be  the  divine  agency 
to  effect  his  will.  With  pregnant  sarcasm, 
Lowell  dubs  him,  "the  volunteer  laureate  of 
the  rod."  To  get  men  to  do  right,  he  swings 
his  terrific  "fire-whip"  of  retribution  over  in- 
dividuals and  nations.  He  is  the  modern 
Jeremiah  and  John  the  Baptist,  with  much 
the  same  intensity  and  narrowness. 

Contrary  wise,  Emerson  is  more  Greek  than 


16       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

Hebrew,  more  like  Plato  or  Plutarch  than 
the  Old  Testament  prophets.  To  the  method 
of  the  rod  he  has  a  decided  aversion.  He 
challenges  the  manhood  of  men,  and  reveals 
their  spiritual  possibilities.  He  would  lead 
them  to  the  right,  not  so  much  by  unfolding 
the  penal  terror  of  the  law,  as  by  unfolding  its 
beneficence ;  not  so  much  by  making  evil  ugly 
and  hateful,  as  by  making  the  good  beautiful 
and  lovable.  "Love  and  justice  alone"  can 
rule  and  reform  a  state.  His  point  of  view 
is  the  genius  of  humanity  rather  than  the 
genius  of  the  great  man.  No  hero-worship- 
per he.  I  cannot  recall  one  tribute,  even  to 
Jesus,  which  really  glows  with  fervid  and 
grateful  sympathy.  Out  of  the  inexhaustible 
energies  of  the  race  the  "can-man"  is  created. 

"Oh  what  are  heroes,  prophets,  men, 
But  pipes  through  which  the  breath  of  man 

blow 
A,  momentary  music! " 

Carlyle  banked  too  much  on  the  lifting 
power  of  organization  and  institutional  agen- 
cies. Emerson  just  as  surely  undervalued 
these,  and  banked  too  much  on  the  self- 
helpfulness  and  self-willingness  to  be  helped 
of  the  masses  of  men.  One  erred  on  the  side 
of  magnifying  the  uncommon  man,  the  other 
on  the  side  of  magnifying  the  common  man. 
One  evinced  too  little  faith  in  the  self-gov- 
erning capacity  of  the  people,  the  other, 
perhaps,  evinced  too  much. 

In  their  way  of  looking  either  at  God  or 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       17 

man,  the  temper  of  Carlyle  is  Calvinistic; 
the  temper  of  Emerson  is  that  of  the  modern 
liber alist  and  rationalist.  One  sees  more 
might  and  majesty  in  the  universe,  the  other 
more  beauty  and  love.  One  shows  more  of 
the  meanness,  the  other  more  of  the  nobleness, 
of  human  nature.  With  the  one  the  Hebrew 
sense  of  sin  is  stronger,  with  the  other  the 
Greek  sense  of  law.  To  Carlyle  the  world  is 
a  tragic  drama  of  imperious,  ons weeping  force. 
Man  is  a  "fire-breathing,  spirit-host,  issuing 
from  Cimmerian  Night,"  emerging  from  the 
Inane,  hasting  stormfully  across  the  aston- 
ished earth,  plunging  again  into  the  Inane. 
He  feels  himself,  a  very  ghost  among  ghosts, 
marching  in  this  host  his  tragic  march — "O 
heaven  whither?"  Overwhelmed  with  the 
sense  of  universal  force  and  combat,  he  magni- 
fies evil  and  pain.  To  Emerson  there  is  far 
less  storm  and  tragedy.  He,  also,  feels  him- 
self a  spirit  in  transit  on  our  earth-planet. 
Miraculous,  too,  is  the  panorama  of  flux  and 
change;  but  he  seems  to  sit  serenely  nearer  the 
Mover  of  it  all.  Through  a  clearer  photo- 
sphere he  watches  the  world-drama  with 
Argus-eyes  of  preternatural  sight.  A  self- 
contained,  unimpassioned  onlooker,  viewing 
all  subjects  and  particulars  in  universal  re- 
lations, he  veils  the  shadows  of  evil  and  suffer- 
ing with  supernal  light. 

The  great  difference  in  the  way  the  two—- 
seers looked  at  mankind  justifies  the  common 
application   of   optimist   and   pessimist.     In 
Emerson's  vision  there  is  more  of  the  glory 


18       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

of  the  rising  sun;  in  Carlyle's  more  that  of  the 
setting  sun.  Backward  the  latter  glances  for 
his  heroes  and  heroisms,  exalting  the  past  at 
the  expense  of  the  present.  The  former  de- 
preciates the  past  compared  with  the  present. 
Despite  grave  social  diseases,  out  of  resident 
forces  he  sees  evolving  the  perfecter  humanity. 
To  Carlyle  the  present  world  was  a  "mad 
one,"  quite  "out  of  joint,"  and  unmistakably 
he  was  "born  to  set  it  right" — not,  however, 
in  "cursed  spite,"  so  much  did  he  relish  the 
business.  He  is  a  right  valiant  knight,  in 
quest  of  trials  of  strength;  and  he  will  have 
them,  though  he  fight  at  times  good  and  true 
knights  travelling  a  different  way  to  the  same 
goal.  As  eagles  are  said  to  sometimes  swoop 
down  upon  little  children,  as  well  as  upon 
legitimate  prey,  so  this  eagle-minded  man 
sometimes  bears  down  on  the  really  true  and 
beautiful  treasures  of  men.  With  all  his 
veracity,  like  old  Dr.  Johnson,  whom  he  much 
resembles  and  makes  one  of  his  heroes,  he 
had  a  perversity  for  opposition;  not  infre- 
quently he  seemed  to  talk  for  victory  more 
than  truth;  to  display  his  gift  for  caustic  wit, 
rather  than  to  render  just  judgment. 

But  if  Carlyle  is  the  voice  of  a  pessimism 
oftentimes  neither  sweet  nor  reasonable, 
Emerson  is  sometimes  the  voice  of  an  optim- 
ism hardly  more  acceptable.  One  may  be 
blinded  by  too  little  passion  as  well  as  by  too 
much.  Here  and  there  his  utterances  en- 
courage the  selfishness  of  a  passive  quietism 
and  unsympathetic  apathy,  though  happily 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       19 

offset  by  other  utterances  of  contrary  tone. 
11  OUT  painful  labors  are  unnecessary."  "None 
of  us  can  wrong  the  universe."  The  rumble 
and  grumble  of  Thomas  Carlyle  have  more 
life-making  music — the  martial  music  of  the 
gods.  Have  they  not  a  relish — the  words  he 
shoots  at  his  placid  brother  over  the  sea? 
"Truly,  it  is  most  indubitable,  there  is  good  in 
all;  and  if  you  see  an  Oliver  Cromwell  [or 
Abraham  Lincoln]  assassinated  it  is  certain 
you  may  get  a  cart-load  of  turnips  from  his 
carcass.  .  .  .  Let  us  well  remember  it; 
and  yet  remember  too  that  it  is  not  good  al- 
ways, or  ever,  to  be  'at  ease  in  Zion';  good 
often  to  be  in  fierce  rage  in  Zion ;  and  that  the 
vile  Pythons  of  this  Mud-World  do  verily 
require  to  have  sun-arrows  shot  into  them, 
and  red-hot  pokers  struck  through  them 
according  to  occasion.  Woe  to  the  man  that 
carries  either  of  these  weapons,  and  does  not 
use  it  in  their  presence." 

Sympathy  with  Emerson  was  extensive 
jrather  than  intensive.  His  heart  did  not 
sweat  drops  of  blood  over  the  battle-waging 
and  cross-dragging  of  mortal  men.  "Man- 
kind's collected  woe  o'erwhelms  me!"  is  not 
one  of  his  lines.  "Heroic,  angers"  and  love- 
angers  seldom  perturb  his  tranquil  spirit. 
And  yet  be  it  remembered,  not  without  sat- 
isfaction, too,  that  more  than  once  did  he 
descend  into  the  arena  of  actual  combat,  and 
shoot  the  "sun-arrows"  into  "the  vile  Pythons 
of  this  Mud-World."  Forget  not,  how,  in 
1851,  he  stumped  his  own  Congressional  dis- 


20       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

trict — for  a  righteous  cause  braving  the  sneer 
and  laugh  of  the  worldly  wise,  and  the  hissing 
of  the  vulgarly  foolish!  Forget  not  his 
valiant  and  scathing  attack  upon  Webster, 
for  defending  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law!  "All 
the  drops  of  his  blood  have  eyes  that  look 
downward,  and  his  finely  developed  under- 
standing only  works  truly  and  with  all  its 
force  when  it  stands  for  animal  good,  that  is 
for  property."  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  the 
voice  of  vision,  of  conscience  and  the  future; 
Daniel  Webster,  the  voice  of  his  present — of 
a  blind  leader  of  the  blind  who  have  no  higher 
aim  than  commercial  gain  and  physical  grat- 
ification. 

Let  the  writer  indulge  himself  in  one  other 
quotation  illustrative  of  the  courage  and 
vision  of  Emerson.  It  is  the  conclusion  of 
his  speech  prompted  by  the  hanging  of  John 
Brown,  a  speech  that  ought  to  rank  among 
the  most  precious  jewels  of  the  world's  ora- 
tory.— "Nothing  is  more  absurb  than  to  com- 
plain of  this  sympathy,  or  to  complain  of  a 
party  of  men  united  in  opposition  to  Slavery. 
As  well  complain  of  gravity,  or  the  ebb 
of  the  tide.  Who  makes  the  Abolitionist? 
The  slaveholder.  The  sentiment  of  mercy  is 
the  natural  recoil  which  the  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse provide  to  protect  mankind  from  des- 
truction by  savage  passions.  And  our  blind 
Statesmen  go  up  and  down,  with  committees 
of  vigilance  and  safety,  hunting  for  the  origin 
of  this  new  heresy.  They  will  need  a  very 
vigilant  committee,  indeed,  to  find  its  birth- 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       21 

place,  and  a  very  strong  force  to  root  it  out. 
For  the  arch- Abolitionist,  older  than  Brown, 
and  older  than  the  Shenandoah  Mountains, 
is  Love,  whose  other  name  is  Justice,  which 
was  before  Alfred,  before  Lycurgus,  before 
Slavery,  and  will  be  after  it." 

Carlyle  carried  into  his  work  and  life,  in 
large  measure,  the  virtues  and  vices  of  the 
Stoic.  Self-sufficient  pride,  contempt,  cen- 
soriousness,  even  envy,  were  too  manifestly 
housed  in  his  nature.  Very  trying,  indeed, 
nigh  to  meanness,  are  his  reflections  on  some 
of  the  noblest  men  of  his  time,  especially  on 
his  steadfast  friend  in  America. 

Macaulay's  erudite,  yet  vivacious  and 
brilliant  history  was  to  him,  "Flat,  without 
a  ray  of  genius."  Coleridge,  that  mystical 
genius  of  dream  and  critical  insight  is  a 
"rotten  hulk,"  "a  poor,  greedy,  sensual 
creature,  who  could  not  keep  from  his  laud- 
num  bottle."  And  what  of  Wordsworth,  the 
author  of  "Intimations  of  Immortality,"  the 
poet  whom  Emerson  declared  a  seer  of  "the 
truly  great,"  a  restorer  of  sanity  to  cultivated 
society."  What  of  Wordsworth?  Why,  this 
—"A  genuine,  but  a  small  diluted  man." 

Referring  to  "The  Nemesis  of  Faith," 
written  by  the  historian  Froude,  his  intimate 
friend,  Carlyle  pronounced  it  "not  worth  its 
paper  and  ink,"  and  asks  "what  on  earth  is 
the  use  of  a  wretched  mortal's  vomiting  up 
all  his  inferior  crudities,  dubitations,  and 
Spiritual  agonizing  belly-aches  into  the  view 


22        Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

of  the  public,  and  howling  tragically,  'See!'  ' 
John  Stuart  Mill  was  generally  recognized 
as  a  profound  thinker,  of  marked  toleration 
and  breadth  of  mind.  Moreover,  he  was  a 
1  generous  appreciator  and  encourager  of  con- 
temporaries, especially  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
and  Thomas  Carlyle,  himself.  But  while  the 
former,  despite  his  public  controversy  with 
Mill,  paid  him-  high  tribute,  Carlyle  made 
him,  on  his  death,  the  object  of  such  splenetic 
criticsim  as  this:  speaking  of  his  autobio- 
graphy, he  writes  to  brother  John,  that  he 
had  not  read  "a  sillier;"  "wholly  the  life  of  a 
logic-chopping  engine.  *** 
I  suppose  it  will  deliver  us  from  the  cock-a- 
leery  crow  about  'the  Great  Thinker  of  his 
age/  " 

But  of  all  Carlyle' s  captious  and  worm- 
wood strictures  on  contempraries  that  upon 
Emerson,  who  exerted  himself  so  much  to 
prepare  for  him,  in  this  "plastic"  new  world, 
an  appreciative  public — that  upon  Emerson 
is  about  the  most  unforgivable.  What  shall 
one  say  of  his  communicating  to  Duffy,  the 
young  Irish  revolutionist,  such  disparage- 
ment of  his  faithful  friend  as  this,  that  prac- 
tically Emerson  stole  his  "system"  from 
certain  works  of  himself,  and  was  only  origi- 
nal [verily,  as  Shakespeare,  himself  was 
original]  in  working  it  up  in  his  own  way. 
Then  this  ridiculing  description  and  mimicry : 
"He  has  a  sharp,  perking  little  face,  and 
keeps  bobbing  it  up  and  down  (so),  with 
'yissir,  yissir'  in  answer  to  objections."  Add 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast      23 

to  the  above  the  following:  written,  when 
many  of  his  own  disciples  were  attending 
Emerson's  lectures?  "Emerson  is  now  in 
England,  in  the  North,  lecturing  to  Mechan- 
ics' Institutes,  etc. ;  in  fact,  though  he  knows 
it  not,  to  a  kind  of  intellectual  canaille.  Came 
here  and  stayed  with  us  some  days  on  his  first 
arrival.  Very  exotic;  of  smaller  dimensions, 
too,  and  differed  much  from  me,  as  a  gymno- 
sophist  sitting  idle  on  a  flowery  bank  may  do 
from  a  wearied  worker  and  wrestler,  passing 
that  way  with  many  of  his  bones  broken. 
Good  of  him  I  could  get  none,  except  from 
his  friendly  looks  and  elevated,  exotic,  polite 
ways ;  and  he  would  not  let  me  sit  silent  for  a 
minute. "  The  last  observation  approaches 
the  comic,  when  one  remembers  Carlyle's 
fondness  for  doing  the  talking — the  most 
copious  talker  anywhere,  Mrs.  Carlyle 
thought  until  she  fell  in  with  Macaulay.  (In 
fact,  Emerson  preached  "the  divine  wisdom 
of  silence"  much  less  and  practiced  it  much 
more.  In  pessimistic  and  dyspeptic  moods 
Carlyle  poured  forth  his  harsh,  sometimes 
shallow,  criticisms  on  his  contemporaries, 
and  men  in  general.  He  despairs,  rails  and 
cavils — yea  degenerates  now  and  then  into 
the  mere  rhetorical  termigant,  indiscrimin- 
ately scolding  and  fault-finding. 

In  all  this  how  conspicuously  unlike  the 
Chelsea  Sage  is  the  Sage  of  Concord.  Hardly 
could  one  be  moved  less  to  write  or  speak  from 
personal  whim,  prejudice,  desire  for  victory 
of  argument  or  of  wit — any  motive  other  than 


24        Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

the  supreme  one  of  being  a  vehicle  of  God's 
thought,  expressed  through  him  in  his  best 
moods,  which  moods  he  conscientiously 
watched  for  and  utilized,  so  as  to  have  as  little 
padding  or  desert  wastes  as  possible  in  his 
pages.  Well-poised,  serene,  peering  through 
a  personal  atmosphere  comparatively  un- 
clouded, he  seldom,  almost  never,  falls  below 
just  and  wholesome  criticism.  He  may  ir- 
ritate a  little  by  depreciative  judgment,  as, 
for  instance,  his  diary  observations  that 
Alcott  and  Hawthorne  "  together  would  make 
a  man,"  and  that  our  entrancing  versifier, 
Tennyson,  is  only  "a  beautiful  half  of  a  poet," 
producing,  "the  poetry  of  an  exquisite."  But 
never  does  he  say  mean  things  of  his  contem- 
poraries. It  is  a  marked  beauty  of  his  char- 
acter, that  he  could  so  highly  appreciate  the 
talent  and  work  of  others  in  the  world;  was, 
withal,  so  modest  and  courteous  in  all  his 
relations  to  his  fellowmen.  The  more  praise- 
worthy this,  because  though  naturally  fastid- 
ious and  shrinking  from  coarse  and  unculti- 
vated natures,  he  yet  disciplined  himself  to 
treat  all  men  as  carrying  divinity  within.  He 
respected  men  everywhere;  pronounced  him 
shallow  "who  rails  at  them  and  their  con- 
trivances." Quite  in  contrast  to  his  friend 
over  the  sea,  he  mastered  the  virtues  of  pa- 
tience and  forbearance,  and  came  very  nigh 
attaining  the  wisdom  expressed  in  his  own 
lines, 

"Of  all  wit's  uses,  the  main  one 
Is  to  live  well  with  who  has  none." 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast      25 

Britain's  seer  never  learned  how  to  live 
with  common  men,  in  fact  to  live  with  uncom- 
mon men — yea,  how  to  live  with  himself.  He 
is  wonderfully  rich  in  all  unrest  and  warlike 
energy — an  old  Thor,  with  iron  glove  and 
mallet,  shivering  men's  idols  to  smitherines, — 
the  iclnoclast  Whittier  had  in  mind: — 

"All  grim  and  soiled  and  brown  with  tan, 

I  saw  a  strong  one,  in  his  wrath, 
Smiting  the  godless  shrines  of  man 
Along  his  path." 

Emerson,  be  it  said,  is  in  the  world,  also, 
with  a  sword.  He  knows  what  is  amiss,  but 
he  rights  to  set  it  right  as  one  who  sees  a  reas- 
on for  the  enemy's  side.  His  breadth  of 
vision  and  sympathy  embrace  the  slave- 
holder as  well  as  the  slave.  He  brings  to 
battle  the  spirit  of  cheerful  prophecy,  music, 
and  the  cultured  humanities.  What  finer 
figure  than  that  of  Dr.  Holmes?  "Car- 
lyle is  an  iconoclast  with  a  hammer.  Emerson 
is  an  iconoclast  without  a  hammer.  He  takes 
down  your  idols  so  tenderly  it  seems  an  act 
of  worship."  In  either  case,  however,  the 
iconoclast — each,  sui  generis,  a  "scourge  and 
minister"  to  his  generation,  cleanser  divine  of 
earth's  moral  miasms.  Brave  and  sincere, 
with  right  royal  disrelish  of  cant  of  whatso- 
ever kind,  neither  of  these  seers  will  flatter 
his  countrymen,  nor  in  anywise  peddle  cam- 
paign sugar-pills.  *They  deal  with  the  ve- 
racities of  life — veracity  of  insight,  veracity 


26        Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

of   speech.     Of   the   one   not   less   than   the 
other  must  it  be  said, 

"He  would  not  flatter  Neptune  for  his  trident, 
Or  Jove  for  his  power  to  thunder." 

In  any  critical  estimate  of  these  contempo- 
rary writers,  the  question  forces  itself :  Which 
will  have  the  broader  influence,  and  better 
stand  the  test  of  time  ?  This  is  not  a  question 
easy  to  answer. 

While  both  are  intellectual  and  moral  at- 
mospheres of  the  highest  tonic  qualities, 
Emerson  is  the  purer  and  more  inclusive  of 
the  two.  His  vision  sweeps  over  wider  pros- 
pects and  relations;  it  detects  divinity  lurking 
under  more  multifarious  forms.  Both  aiming 
to  deal  with  subjects,  not  of  local  and  tem- 
porary, but  of  univeral  and  perennial  interest, 
Emerson  realized  more  completely  that  aim. 
His  thought,  too,  is  broader  and  juster,  and 
his  style  better  adapted  to  make  it  the  world's 
currency.  Above  all,  by  reason  of  a  gospel 
more  optimistic  and  inspiring,  enforced  with 
a  life  of  superior  goodness  and  beauty,  Emer- 
son shall  speak  with  greater  authority  among 
the  seers  and  prophets  of  the  earth.  From 
birth  he  was  baptized  to  the  pure  intellec- 
tualities and  spiritualities.  No  drop  of  his 
blood  pointed  downward.  The  gods  fash- 
ioned him  for  victory  on  the  higher  levels  of 
life.  And  he  lifts  those  who  wish  to  be  lifted, 
not  more  by  the  power  of  his  teachings  than 
by  the  power  of  his  elevated  personality. 
To  men,  high  or  low,  or  of  whatsoever 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       27 

doctrine,  he  was  a  subtle  and  persuasive  in- 
fluence. After  a  visit,  having  parted  from 
Carlyle,  the  latter  wrote  in  his  diary,  a  most 
pleasant  contrast  to  his  harsh  criticism,  !"I 
saw  him  go  up  the  hill ;  I  did  not  go  with  him 
to  see  him  descend.  I  preferred  to  watch  him 
mount,  and  vanish  like  an  angel."  To  Father 
Taylor,  the  Methodist  sailor  preacher,  the 
suggestion  of  his  friend  being  sent  to  hell  was 
little  less  than  absurd.  "He  must  go  to 
heaven  when  he  dies,  for  if  he  went  to  hell  the 
devil  would  not  know  what  to  do  with  him." 
"But  if  he  should  go  there,  so  sweet  is  his 
character,  that  he  would  change  the  climate, 
and  emigration  would  set  that  way."  Radical 
as  his  attitude  was,  he  yet  very  largely  killed 
out  during  his  own  life  the  prejudice  against 
him,  by  virtue  of  his  exemplary  personal 
traits. 

Once  simply  meeting  and  passing  a  few 
words  with  this  wise  man, — it  was  in  his  own 
town  and  in  his  latter  days, — the  impression 
made  upon  the  writer  abides  forever.  I  see 
again  his  face  with  the  flush  of  the  Autumn 
leaves  in  the  woods,  made  sacred  by  his 
visitations.  I  see  that  benignant  smile  play- 
ing over  his  countenance,  even  as  the  last 
beaming  of  the  setting  sun  on  the  October 
foliage  of  the  maples.  In  that  face  shone 
divine  strength  and  repose,  the  imperishable 
beauty  of  wisdom  and  virtue.  Here,  I  said, 
is  the  harmony  of  one  who  has  made  his 
peace  with  God,  with  himself,  with  the 
world  of  persons  and  things. 


28       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

In  1837  Emerson  gave  this  advice:  "Sit 
apart,  write;  let  them  hear  or  let  them  for- 
bear; the  written  word  abides  until  slowly 
and  unexpectedly,  and  in  widely  sundered 
places,  it  has  created  its  own  church."  Faith- 
fully the  advisor  kept  the  advice.  And  the 
written  word  has  created  its  own  church. 
With  all  joy  and  far-reaching  hope  I  per- 
ceive, amid  the  darker  signs  of  the  time,  this 
great  sign  of  light,  viz.,  that  our  foremost 
seer  of  the  "new  world,"  and  of  the  modern 
age,  is  making,  albeit  slowly,  his  silent  con- 
quest of  men  and  women,  on  two  continents, 
who  really  want  to  be  liberated  from  the 
bonds  of  the  sensual  and  selfish.  From 
painstaking  inquiry,  I  affirm,  especially  that 
he  is  becoming  a  shaping  influence  in  the 
minds  of  the  more  enlightened  of  that  class 
in  American  society  whose  throne  is  the 
pulpit.  Thus  shall  his  soul  diffuse  itself 
among  his  countrymen,  "from  above  down- 
wards." 

Thomas  Carlyle  was  sent  to  the  Old  World 
with  the  flaming  sword  of  righteousness,  to 
wage  valiant  warfare  against  the  unveracities 
and  wrong-goings  of  man;  but  the  light  of 
truth  emanating  through  him  suffered  dis- 
coloration from  his  passionate  prejudice  and 
dyspeptic,  pessimistic  temperament,  There- 
fore, 

"God  said, 

I  will  have  a  purer  gift ; 

There  is  smoke  in  the  flame." 

To  be  that  gift  was  sent  to  the  New  World 


Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast       29 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson — among  modern  men 
of  letters  supremely  endowed  to  be  what 
England's  Matthew  Arnold  so  discerningly 
pronounced  him  to  be  — "The  Friend  and 
Aider  of  those  who  wish  to  live  in  the  Spirit. " 
Not  an  intellect  of  passionate  demonstration, 
of  dynamic  and  dramatic  imagination,  of 
contagious  enthusiasm,  yet  there  burned  at 
his  altar  a  steady  vestal  flame  of  extensive 
human  sympathy.  Sensitive  and  shrinking 
from  strife,  tender  of  the  rights  of  others,  but 
of  such  imperative  sense  of  duty  that  none 
spoke  with  more  frank  and  manly  directness 
than  he.  What  he  saw  to  be  true  he  bravely 
set  down,  with  naught  of  malice  to  any  man. 
So  broadsighted  that  he  could  understand  the 
conservative's  side,  and  wrap  him  along  with 
the  radical  in  his  ample  mantle  of  charity. 
The  courage  and  heart  of  the  reformer  were 
his,  but  not  less  also  the  humility  and  gentle- 
ness  of  the  saint.  With  the  courtesy  of  the 
true  gentleman  of  the  world  he  united  the 
independence,  the  simplicity,  the  unconven- 
tional genuineness  of  solitude. 

Regenerative  eclectic  spirit  of  the  world's 
literature!  The  calm,  peering  gaze  and  self- 
surrender  of  the  Hindoo  sage,  the  wide-sweep- 
ing vision  of  Plato,  the  sterling  common  sense 
of  the  New  England  Yankee,  the  poetic,  mys- 
tical spirit  of  the  Orient,  the  practical,  ethical 
spirit  of  the  Occident — these  meet  in  him. 
Who  has  preserved  finer  equilibrium  between 
the  patriotic  and  the  cosmopolitan,  between  the 
real  and  the  ideal,  liberty  and  obedience,  the 


30       Carlyle  and  Emerson:  a  Contrast 

nay  and  the  yea,  "the  waster  and  the  builder, 
too"?  Feet  on  the  earth,  head  in  the  serene 
and  silent  eternities,  his  "go-cart  hitched  to 
a  star" — thus  he  lived  and  worked  his  allotted 
time  with  men,  though,  as  it  were,  veiled 
from  them  by  a  diviner  atmosphere,  suggest- 
ing seraphic  personalities  of  some  city  of  God 
"not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heav- 
ens." 


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